Your Body Will Be Your Tomb
by Receuvium
Summary: "And you'll be in there with nothing but dreams formed of your own regrets." When Henry takes a bite from the enchanted turnover, where does he end up?
1. Chapter 1: The Apple

**Chapter 1: The Apple**

* * *

Deep in the dark of her prison, the sleeper woke.

It was quiet here, without the din of dark desires to serenade her. It was always quiet, for nothing stirred in this cavern except her, nor had it for the twenty-eight years she'd brooded there.

Her mind was as still as her talons, and her tail. There was no madness in her unwavering glare, despite how long she'd spent alone. Yes, her mind was clear and steady, and focused. Absolutely focused.

In the light of the glass coffin at the cavern's centre, the dreamer narrowed her eyes. Fierce things they were, shielded by scaled lids and serpentine, with all the sureness of an implacable predator. She was reminding herself of her vow: that one day, with patience, she would get out of here. And when she did, she would find the one who'd done this to her.

_My only friend._

She wouldn't kill her. No, friends like these didn't do that to each other. She'd resolved that much once the patience of decades had asserted itself over her fury. Besides, the Queen – or, as she preferred to be called now, the _mayor_ – was a very powerful sorceress. Taking her life would mean releasing a blast of magic, one so powerful, the dreamer was sure it would transcend even the reach of the curse. So it would be suicide, and the dreamer had no intention of dying.

But, her friend was going to suffer for it all the same. Suffer for longer than this.

Still, the dreamer could only make her vow to the rocks of a cavern she could not escape. Still she remained here, with only dreams to console her.

She laid her head down, with an impact that shuddered through the earth. She snorted out a casual breath of flame, and closed her eyes. In the recesses of sleep, there were familiar victims to be found.

Yes. There was some consolation in dreams, after all.

And there was more. For the first time since she'd ended up here twenty-eight years ago, her friend was throwing her fresh meat. She'd seen it, through her tenuous link to the world beyond this prison, by the last vestiges of magic hidden inside her.

Another soul to be torn open and broken down. Another to join the chaos, to become intertwined with her mind forever. Enter Emma Swan. Welcome to your own nightmare.

With armoured eyelids shut, and already drifting off, Maleficent curled her jaw into a grin.

* * *

Ten-year-old Henry Mills was caught up in Emma's arms. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was trying his best to be brave, but it wasn't easy. He figured he didn't have to think about things just yet. He could just hold on and pretend she wasn't really leaving, pretend their whole conversation just now had been some cruel trick of his mind.

But when he raised his head from where he stood hugging her, and opened his eyes, the turnover on the bench came into focus. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he broke away from Emma at once.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, going in for a closer look.

"Regina gave it to me," Emma said... like she didn't see what a big deal that was.

Henry leant over the plate – and recoiled the moment he smelt it. "Apple!"

"So?"

He shook his head. "You can't eat that - it's poison."

"What?"

"Don't you see? The deal, it was all a trick to get you to eat _that_. To get rid of the saviour."

"Henry, come on." Emma sounded so calm and level, but Henry's heart was already pounding. "Why would she do that when I just told her I was going to go?"

"'Cause as long as you're alive, you're a threat to the curse!"

"Henry. You've gotta stop thinking like this."

She didn't believe in curses, he reminded himself – never had. But Regina was trying to _kill_ her, and the proof was right there in the scent of baked apples.

"It's the truth!" he said. "And you leaving isn't gonna change that!"

Emma held his eyes.

"I'll prove it to you," she said. She reached for it.

Henry grabbed for it too. "No!" he yelled, wresting it from her hands.

"Henry!"

A jolt ran through him as he skirted around her to the other end of the kitchen. If he hadn't seen what she had in mind a second before she'd done it, it would already be over.

He made sure he was far enough away that she wouldn't make any sudden moves for it. Then he stood there, gripping the poisoned turnover, looking hard at her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

And suddenly, he knew exactly what he was doing.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this," he said. "You may not believe in the curse. Or in me." Emma tilted her head, like it hurt her that he'd even think that. It didn't matter. He really was sorry, but right then, only one thing counted, and it was that she understood. "But I believe in you."

He bit into the turnover.

It was the right thing to do. Or maybe it was the only thing to do. If he didn't force her hand now, she was going to leave, and that could not happen.

He chewed. It tasted innocuous enough, Mom's cooking, but he knew he was grinding poison over in his mouth. Emma looked at him with something painfully like pity, but he ignored that too, and stared straight back at her and waited for the world to slip away.

It occurred to him, this might be the last time he ever saw her.

It occurred to him this might be the end. Could it really kill him? Or would it just put him to sleep? Either way, it was out of his hands now. It was all up to Emma. As he swallowed, he felt like he could barely breathe. He was meant be there with her, when she broke the curse.

"See?" Emma said. "You wanna have some ice cream with that, and then we can get back to talking about the deal I made with Regina?"

He peered at the roll in his hands, and the bite mark taken out of it. Was it working? Would he start feeling faint first, or would he just black out?

"Henry? Did you hear me?"

He looked up. Emma was still there with that concerned expression... but there was something strange about it, something he couldn't quite place, like her eyes were laughing.

"But..." he said. "But, it was supposed to..."

"Do what? Put you in a coma for true love's kiss?" Emma strode over and took the turnover from his hands before he had time to pull it away. "I keep trying to tell you, kid. Regina's just happy that I'm leaving, no one wants to kill me, and magic isn't real."

And then she raised the turnover to her mouth.

"No," Henry said, grabbing for it, but she was taller, and she snatched it out of his reach and bit down and chewed. Henry watched in horror. "Emma, no! Please, please Emma, spit it out, maybe it just hasn't kicked in yet, or maybe it only works on you!"

Emma peered down at him and slowly, deliberately, swallowed. "Mm. Delicious."

Henry backed away, breath caught. Any second now, she was going to collapse. It was all over, he'd lost. All because she wouldn't _listen_ to him!

But seconds passed, and she was still standing there. Nothing had happened. He was about as relieved as he was confused.

Then it clicked. "It's because there's no magic left in Storybrooke! Her spell must have failed!" His hands were shaking slightly from what had almost happened. "Emma, you have no idea how lucky we were just now."

Emma laughed and took another bite. "Henry," she said through the mouthful. "Do you have any idea how sick I am of hearing this same tired old crap?"

She might as well have hit him.

"N-no, you have to listen," he said, recovering quickly. "I know you don't believe, but I can show you. When I went to see August, he was turning back into Pinocchio, and he –"

"And Red Riding Hood came prancing around you in a circle and the Three Little Pigs tried to warn you she was a wolf, and the Gingerbread Man led you on a chase through the loony house while the Mad Hatter told you I was the chosen one." Emma tossed the apple treat into a corner, and started towards him. "Face it, kid. You're out of your mind."

He backed away in shock. "I'm… I'm not –"

"You wanna know the only reason I've stuck around so long? It's because you amuse me. You crack me right the hell up. Ten years old, and you actually believe in fairy tales. You should hear yourself."

"Emma," Henry pleaded. "That's not why you stayed, you know that's not true."

"Oh, it's true. The whole town feels sorry for you. Everyone from Archie to Mr Gold, and especially Mary Margaret. They nod their heads and go along like it's all a game, but behind your back they're talking about getting you nice and medicated, and putting you away. I play the part of the concerned mother for their sake, but frankly, it's getting old. The only other one who sees the joke is August. Oh, you didn't realise, did you? He has a prosthetic leg. He lost it in a motorbike accident."

"No." Henry shook his head. He couldn't take her eyes off her, but the turnover lay crumpled in the corner, and in dismay, it dawned on him what was happening here. "No Emma, listen to what you're saying, it's... it's the apple. My mom put a spell on it to turn you evil. You wouldn't say this." Tears stung at his voice. "You have to fight it..."

"There's nothing to fight. I only came here to start with to take advantage of you. It was all a show, Henry. Can't you see that? An act." As she said it, she dropped back into a tone of genuine concern, but there was a mocking edge to it. And then it was gone altogether. "You should have listened to your mom."

"But you're my mom," Henry said.

Hearing her talk like this sapped the strength from him. What could he do? He could beg Regina to reverse the spell, but of course she would say, she didn't know what he was talking about, and hadn't she warned him Emma would only hurt him? And he would know she was lying, and she'd know he knew, but it wouldn't change a thing. Emma would still leave, twisted up and spellbound. The curse would remain.

And, there was a tiny, dismal part of him wheedling that question the rest of him didn't dare ask. Not because he thought it might be true, even for a second. But because it was so terrible, that defeated side of him thought it was the only thing that made sense.

What if she was telling the truth?

"Regina didn't put a spell on me, kid." Emma had advanced so she was right in front of him, towering above, with a dark glint in her eye. "True enough she wants to drive me out. But like I said, I've had enough anyway. No doubt the reason you're so messed up to start with is because of how she treats you. But don't take that to mean I give a damn. You don't have any friends here and you came to me looking for help, but why would I want to spend any more time with you, listening to you blether on about how you can hear Jiminy Cricket's voice in your head?"

No.

This couldn't be right. With a glance to the half-eaten turnover on the floor, he reminded himself there was more than one hole to this story. There was in fact another possibility he hadn't thought of.

Henry raised his eyes to hers. His breath shook, but there was rage in his features and when his voice quavered, this time it was only through anger. "I don't believe you."

"Believe it or don't. But this is the real world."

"No it's not!" Henry said. "Emma would never say this to me in the real world. _She's_ my mom, and _she loves me_. And she's going to save Storybrooke. And you're not her. So who are you, and where are we really?"

Emma's mocking smile flickered.

"Well," she said, and her voice was decidedly different. None of Emma's warmth and style, but in its place the silky tone of a predator at play. "And there I was starting to think this was going to be too easy."

Her face dissolved. It transformed into someone else's entirely. The hair was still blond, but curled. Her features were older, and harsher, and her mouth was a half-open black chasm. Her eyes were too wide, and they gleamed like reptile eggs. Henry had never seen her in the flesh before. Only in the picture drawings from his book.

The kitchen around them was disappearing too. Henry glanced about as the tiles shimmered like a water illusion coming undone, and the fridge and bench evaporated into smoke. When it cleared, they were standing in a wide, dark throne room, with stone steps leading up to a gilded seat that glimmered in the light shining through stained glass windows.

Henry managed a startled breath. When he'd taken in his new surroundings, he turned back to find the woman leaning over him, sliding a pointed nail under his chin to raise his eyes to hers. "Hm. You're going to be lots of fun," she said. "Sweet boy. Pleased to make your acquaintance. You can call me Maleficent."


	2. Chapter 2: The Tomb

**Chapter 2 – The Tomb**

* * *

"_Father, when you sent me to this world, you had no idea what you were doing. You were flicking the first domino, but you hadn't even seen the chain. You were taking your little leap of faith and hoping things would work out. If my life since then has taught me anything, Father, it's that the smallest acts are the ones that make all the difference._

_You're not a hero, for doing what you did. Being a hero takes more than that. You didn't feel you had a choice. Do you want to know what makes a hero? It's taking a leap, even when you could have done nothing. Because most people choose to do nothing. They're afraid things might not work out, scared of the unknown factors. It's taking that leap, even when you know things could easily end up even worse. That's what separates the heroes from the simply desperate._

_I don't blame you. I'm your son, and I'm no different. I was the wild card in the plan. I was one of the elements no one could have guessed; I was what makes a leap of faith such a brave thing to take. I ran away, Father, and I'm no hero, not then and not now, because for me there's no other way. I'm the puppet who danced to the wrong tune for too long, and now, I have no choice but to cut the strings."_

* * *

When Henry found that writing on August's desk, between his typewriter and the sketch of a knife engraved with the name Rumpelstiltskin, he hadn't given it much thought. Not even enough for the puppet reference to click. He'd been focusing on a bigger problem at the time, namely, August's plan to make Emma believe in the curse.

Right now, though, those words really struck home.

Was it bravery that made him take a bite from that poisoned turnover? Or was he just desperate? Did he have a choice at all, did it make him a hero? All he knew at the time was, Emma had to stay. She _had_ to believe.

And now she would. His and August's efforts had paid off.

There was just one problem.

"So," Maleficent said. "How exactly did you figure it out?"

"The turnover," he said. "If it really put a spell on Emma, then it would've put one of me too. Unless of course it already did, which would mean I'm asleep and everything I see is in a dream. Besides," he added, "August doesn't just have a wooden leg. It's his arm now, too. And there's no way they're prosthetic. So that was kind of a giveaway."

Maleficent's lip curled. "Well spotted. I didn't have time to find that memory in your head."

"But you wanna know why I never would've fallen for it anyway? It's because Emma's a good person. She would've never said that stuff to me, not ever. It wasn't that hard to figure out."

Something strange passed over her features then. Maleficent was dressed so exquisitely, she seemed capable of only the vainest and most sophisticated emotions. It was almost unnatural to see such a primal expression cross her face. It was one of resentment, but curiously, Henry thought he spotted longing there as well. Like she envied that he could say that about someone.

It was only there long enough for him to think he might have imagined it. Then her vainglorious visage came up again.

"It doesn't really matter, of course," Maleficent said. "You're still going to be trapped in here with me for a long, long time. And that was hardly my last trick."

"So I'm asleep, right?" Henry asked.

"Yes. You are. You're a clever boy. Clever, brave, and very foolish." Maleficent began to stalk around him in a circle, with her cloak trailing on the stony floor. "Your little ploy worked, and now you're deep in a coma. With me." She dropped behind him, spindly fingers tracing his cheeks. "Are you frightened?"

Henry pulled away and turned to face her. "Why would I be scared of you? If I'm asleep, that means you're not real."

Maleficent stood upright and laughed, a laugh that tinkled like falling glass pieces. With her long fingers intertwined and her reptile eyes fixed on him, she looked so nightmarish in the dim light that Henry took an involuntary step away from her.

"Dear child. That's where you're wrong. I'm the only thing in here that _is_ real. Don't you remember, from your little book, who crafted that apple you ate? This is _my_ realm." The amusement drained from her face at that, and suddenly she held him instead with a menacing snarl. "You silly little boy."

She advanced with her cloak swooping behind, and now Henry was backpedalling, sharply watching her every stride because it looked like she was poised to strike him. When she thrust her hand forward, though, it was to grip his chin for a fierce look into his eyes. "You forgot, didn't you?" she snapped. "You thought you'd eat that apple turnover and fall into a nice, gentle sleep. As though curses were ever that kind. If you'd read your book closer, maybe you would have thought twice. _Your body will be your tomb. And you'll be in there with nothing but dreams formed of your own regrets._ Sound familiar?"

He backed out of Maleficent's grip. "Look. It doesn't matter, because Emma's gonna get me out of here. She saw what the turnover did to me, so now she knows about the curse. And she's gonna break it."

He said it for his sake as much as for Maleficent's. The chain reaction was set, he reminded himself – there was no changing that now.

Maleficent's eyes were as deathly cold as her voice. "You'll find that's not the case."

"What do you mean? Why not?"

"I mean that your dear mother still doesn't believe a word of it. Of course she doesn't. She's grown up, and long past the point of believing in fairy tales, or happy endings. It's so much harder for adults to accept these things than it is for children."

Henry glared. "You're wrong. It's in the prophecy, she's the one who's gonna break the curse. She has to believe!"

"She doesn't. So, your sacrifice? It was precious, but it was for nothing. And no one's coming to get you out of here. What, you think I'm lying? Why don't you see for yourself?" And with a sweep of her robed arm, she conjured a window back to Storybrooke out of thin air.

Henry watched with wide eyes. There were orderlies loading him onto a hospital bed right outside the hospital ward. Emma was helping them. In one hand she held his backpack, and a plastic wrap with the turnover sealed safely inside. The ward doors opened and Dr Whale came running out. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Emma said. "I don't know, he just..."

"Wheel him in. Now," Dr Whale said.

Henry watched, as they raced his unmoving body into ICU. It was surreal, like being a ghost in an out-of-body experience. Emma was pleading with him to wake up. She was asking if he could hear her...

It was hard, because he knew if he tried calling out to her, she wouldn't hear. But at the same time, Henry felt somehow warmer to see how much she cared about him. He knew it had been one of Maleficent's tricks that told him he was crazy before, not Emma. But it still felt like coming out of a nightmare where, for one cruel minute, it had seemed totally real.

He told himself that once this was over, once she got him out of here, he could tell her how much he cared about her too. Watching her there from a dream, with the first domino flicked and the rest falling rapidly, he realised he finally knew how it felt to have a real mother. It lit a warm glow in his chest. Emma might be scared to become who she needed to be, but he could see that she was a good person, and brave and smart and strong. It felt amazing, to be able to call someone like that his mom.

On the other side of the window, Dr Whale shone a light in his eyes and down his throat while he asked if Henry fell and hit his head. They made it look like he was dying. It wasn't easy to watch, but he forced himself.

Emma thrust the sealed turnover at Dr Whale. "He took a bite of this, and then he just collapsed. So run the test of arsenic, or bleach or Drain-O or whatever could've done this to him!"

"No," Henry said, from behind the magic window where Emma couldn't hear him.

"You see," asked Maleficent, trilling her fingers on his shoulders. "It takes very powerful magic to break this little curse. And I'm afraid right now in Storybrooke, magic has been sorely lacking for quite some time."

Henry watched with his breath caught as Emma and Dr Whale threw some words at each other about 'symptoms' and 'neurotoxins' – medical terms for an ailment that definitely wasn't magical. It dawned on him that he was in serious trouble. She _still_ didn't believe. How could she not? He told her the apple turnover would do this to him, how could she ignore what was right in front of her?

Maleficent waved her hand, and the window vanished into mist. She gave a chuckle.

Henry stood in disbelief.

But not for long. There wasn't time for doubt. He took a deep breath, cleared the consternation from his mind, and when he turned to Maleficent, it was with a casual air again.

"It's a trick," he stated. "You're making this up."

Maleficent's lips seemed to thin. "I assure you, if you call me on a trick, I will tell you. That's the only power you're going to have in our game. And I am not making this up."

Henry shrugged. "Okay. So you're not. But she'll figure it out soon enough. Then she'll come rescue me. I know she will."

Maleficent gazed at him bitterly. "Such faith."

He smiled at her pleasantly. He wasn't concerned anymore. It was nice, to be able to feel that way just from trusting in someone.

Maleficent eyed him a while longer. Slowly her expression changed until she became a silky predator once more.

"It's been such a long time since I had anyone to play with," she said. "All this power, and nothing I can do with it. You can't imagine the frustration."

Suddenly she was gone, in a cloud of smoke. Henry blinked, and looked around. He found her again, seated on the throne atop the stairs, crossing her legs as she studied him.

"It's been especially long since a child took a bite from one of my apples. Delicate souls. So tragic, when I think of how others much older and stronger haven't been able to withstand me. I have turned lovers into sworn enemies. Led men to hate their parents for things that only happened in their nightmares. I've made mothers watch their children die again and again. I've twisted up minds so badly, their only use to me now is as trophies." Idly, she twirled a curl of hair in her fingers. "You are entirely at my mercy."

"You know," Henry said, "considering you're the evil queen's rival and all, I... kinda thought you'd be scarier."

Maleficent smirked. "Oh, you do put on a brave face."

And she gestured to the chamber walls.

And when Henry followed her hand, he saw shadows looming there.

Growing taller, coiling around him. Filling him, somehow, with a sense of dread. There was something about the way the shadows enclosed him that seemed disturbingly familiar. They brought on a strange mood, full of feelings he usually tried to ignore. As they grew larger, the flippant air he'd become so adept at putting on started to slip.

He could tell it was because of the shadows, but he couldn't seem to stop them dragging him down into that state of mind.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm getting warmed up," Maleficent said. "You won't be so sure about yourself in a minute. These are the shadows of your every regret come alive. You do not feel them so strongly in your waking life, because you are still young. But here, you have no defence."

Henry turned one way, then another. Wherever he moved, the shadows were closing in. Creeping along the floor, smothering the air, filling him with powerful emotions that all felt horribly familiar.

He bit his lip. He tried to think of Emma again. What would she do? She'd probably egg Maleficent on with another quip. Henry opened his mouth, but suddenly all he could think of was that he desperately to be anywhere but here, and nothing came out.

"Yes," Maleficent said. "I have seen your heart. And you're just another frightened little boy."

Henry turned to her. Some small, crazy part of him wanted to plead with her to make it stop, before the shadows swallowed him alive. Some part that thought she might actually feel some sympathy, and remorse, and let him go. It might have shown in his eyes, for half a second.

But he pushed it out of the way. He thought of Emma again.

There was no backing out, now that he'd taken the leap. Maleficent said he was at her mercy, and the implication was clear: reptiles like her didn't know what mercy meant. Whatever came next, he would have to face it on his own. The only thing left now was to brace himself, and be brave again.

"No, I'm not," he said. "And I _am_ getting out of here."

Maleficent let him have the last word. She simply laughed, and raised a hand.

And flicked.

The lights went out. The shadows were everywhere, everything. Henry was launched back into their dead embrace.

Did it make him a hero, that he'd chosen this? He had never been so terrified. This force of evil seeping through him now whispered that it had complete control. It promised to break him to pieces.

And then, it threw him back into empty space.

He reached blindly, wildly for something to grab, but he was falling. Falling backwards, deep into the dark of his own soul.**  
**


	3. Chapter 3: The Choice

**Chapter 3: The Choice**

* * *

The dream Henry found himself caught in was like none he'd ever had before.

One minute it was beautiful, the next it turned into a vignette of the worst things he'd ever felt. The strangest part of all was that this dream was just a repeat of the same two scenes on a loop. Over and over the same things happened, and over and over they made him feel the same way. It didn't matter that he knew what was coming. It felt just as bad every time.

Normally when he knew he was dreaming, he could wake up whenever he wanted. Not this time. He kept trying, every time he came back around to those terrible moments, but he just ended up going through them again. It was enough to make him wonder whether this really was a dream, or something else entirely.

"Henry, I need to ask you something very important." The raindrops sliding down the windows. The crickets chirping their chorus. The decision deep as the conviction in her eyes. "Do you want to get away from Regina? Do you wanna come live with me?"

And his heart flew. Even though he knew what was coming next. Even though he knew it couldn't happen, it felt so real that he believed it would.

"More than anything!" he said. She'd actually asked. For the first time in his life – he was going home.

Emma paused for just a second before she sealed the choice with action. "Okay. Then buckle up, all right?"

"Why? Where are we going?"

"We're leaving Storybrooke."

Puzzlement gave way to pure joy. For the rest of the ride through the dark and rain, Henry let himself drift in it. All the time he'd known her, he'd only wanted to be close to her. It was any child's right, to have a mother's love and protection. He only wanted them to be together, and the separation, the constant threat of her leaving, had hung over him like a storm cloud.

So for the drive out of Storybrooke, Henry thought of nothing else. The shops and houses of a sleeping town he'd known all his life passed him by in silence. This moment was the smell of rainwater on her jacket, and the windscreen wipers working on her trusty yellow car, and the knowledge that she was doing this for him. All for him. Running away should have been terrifying, but he'd never felt so safe in his life.

It seemed so right, it was enough to make him ignore the nagging voice reminding him that, no, this wasn't right at all, this was completely _wrong_. It wasn't until they were coursing by the forest, dark and free of the town's dreary lights, that he looked in the back to see Emma's bag there.

"Is that all your stuff?"

"All I need."

And that broke the spell. And he'd known all along.

"Wait – you wanna go now? We're leaving _now_?"

"Uh-huh, I'm getting you out of here, away from all this. Away from her."

Of course, Henry was nothing if not focused. He had a duty. Nothing was going to make him forget that for long, not even this. Heroes never ran away. Heroes stayed and fought to the end. No matter how badly they wanted to escape, they stayed, because that was the right thing to do.

"No, no, stop the car," he said. "You can't leave Storybrooke, you have to break the curse!"

"No, I don't, I have to help you."

"But you're a hero, you can't run! You have to help _everybody_!"

"Henry, I know it's hard for you to see it, but I'm doing what's best for you. That's what you wanted when you brought me to Storybrooke."

"But the curse, you're the only chance to bring back the happy endings!"

"Henry..."

At the time, it had been so clear. He'd looked up to see the sign: _Leaving Storybrooke_. There wasn't even the thought that this could be _his_ happy ending, right then, leaving a place where such things weren't possible anymore. There had only been the sure knowledge of what he needed to do.

But this wasn't that moment. This was just a memory. And as Henry watched the sign draw closer, and knew what was about to happen, he wanted to stop himself. It was weakness, perhaps, but all he wanted was to leave.

Instead, he did the same thing once again. The same heroic, or desperate, or just plain stupid, thing.

He reached over, and jerked the wheel out of her hands.

"Henry –!"

Emma's yellow car skidded over the rain-swept road and she fought for control, and slammed on the brakes, but it was all unfolding again in slow motion. Inescapable.

The car almost came to a halt in the grass. Almost. But it was raining in this dream. Raining, where it had been merely wet in real life. The soaked earth caried it on a little further, and it tilted, tilted... slid.

The world became a cacophony of crunching metal and exploding glass, shards and water whipping their faces as the car careened downhill –

_Buckle up, all right? –_

– but this was a dream, a nightmare, so he didn't have his seatbelt on. Henry's vision disintegrated into a blur of total chaos as the car slammed sideways into a tree – the side Emma was on. He was thrown clear over the dashboard, fast enough that the cracked windscreen simply shattered apart. And when he hit the earth, the cold moist _hard_ earth, the sprinkling of debris was dying down against the quiet patter of rain.

For a while, the rain was all he heard, and it was all he felt on his face, and blackness through the branches overhead was all he could see.

Henry picked himself up slowly. Shakily, vision wavering with the shock of what had happened, the way it only does in bad dreams. He was breathing hard, wiping rainwater from the gashes across his face. He wanted to look up, but he knew what he was going to see, so it took such a long time to raise his head.

The car was crushed. Twisted metal bent around the tree, which hadn't yielded, not even the mercy of an inch. The twigs beneath the car had formed a little campfire to lend warmth to its underbelly. Emma was in the driver's seat, her eyes were open, and her face was unrecognisable from the deep cuts. The door had bent inwards, and seemed to merge into her side.

"Emma," Henry said. "Emma?" Panic was creeping into his voice, with a desperate need for her to answer him, and a certainty she wouldn't. "_Emma_?"

He ran forward, thrust open what was left of the passenger door. He crawled over the seat and shook her shoulder. "Emma!" he shouted. "Emma! Mom! Mom! MOM!"

The fire was rising. The fumes were thick in his nostrils. The world span, but he wouldn't stop shaking her, even though he'd already been through this before, even though he knew she wasn't getting up. He screamed at her. He screamed her name – the name he'd wanted to call her all along. His mother didn't answer.

The rain fell around them both, while the smoke rose to meet it, and all of Henry's hopes and dreams and endings that could have been, they each went with it.

* * *

And the dream shifted.

In Mary Margaret's apartment, where it had been dry in the memory, rain now pounded the windows.

"Yesterday," Emma was saying, "when I tried to take you away. You were right. I can't take you out of Storybrooke."

Henry looked up at her expectantly. He liked where this was going, so far.

"But I can't stay, either."

Which was why _that_ part hit him so much harder. Again.

"What?" he whispered.

He wanted her to take it back, but instead she said, quietly, like it hurt her too, "I have to go."

He went through the shock of it as if it were the first time. "Go – you mean, leave Storybrooke?"

"Yeah. I spoke to Regina, we made a deal, I'm still gonna be able to see you, just not... every day."

"No," he said. "No, you can't trust her!" And he meant it. He needed her to see Regina didn't have a spark of good left inside, she only cared about hurting Emma.

He meant it... but he also meant, _don't leave me alone with her. Not again_.

"I have to. It's my only choice, it's what's best for you Henry. Every time I fight her, someone else gets hurt!"

"No, no, no!" Amid the fear rising inside him, the sense of things suddenly spiralling outside of his control too fast, Henry had a moment of clarity. "You're just scared," he said. Of course she was. He knew she hadn't asked to break any curse. She hadn't asked to be the hero, she didn't think she was enough. But that was how these stories always went, and if he could just make her see that, she would stay. "This happens to all heroes, it's just the low moment, before you _fight back_."

But Emma didn't take that the way he expected.

"Henry," she said, dropping to her knees to hold him by the arms. She looked like it was too much. She looked like she was about to break down. She was pleading with him to listen. "This isn't a story! This is reality... and things have to change. You can't skip school. You can't run away. And... you can't believe in curses."

Henry wanted to think he hadn't heard her right.

"Y... you really don't believe?" he asked.

"I..." Emma couldn't bring herself to answer. But he saw it in her eyes anyway. "This is how it has to be right now."

Of course she didn't believe.

In the dream, though it hadn't happened in real life, there was a voice in the back of his mind calling him a fool. Every time they'd talked about Operation Cobra, all the way back to Archie's office when she told him she didn't think he was crazy, and burnt the pages... she'd just been playing along the entire time. He'd figured everything else out, but he'd let himself miss that. Because it was easier to think she at least thought it _might_ be true. Because it hurt, that he'd finally found his mother only for her to think there was something wrong with him.

And so he'd been alone the whole time.

The finality of it sank in. The enormity of his choice to turn down the only happy ending he could possibly have. Here was the consequence. Emma was leaving, and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop her.

It was his fault. It was his

(_regret_?)

and in the end, there was nothing more to do but lose himself in her arms.

When Henry raised his head from where he stood hugging her, the kitchen bench came into focus. It was empty, because this was a dream. He gave it no more thought. He held tight to her for a long time, and wished beyond hope that she'd change her mind.

"I want you to stay," he murmured.

"I know, kid." Emma's voice was faint like she was trying her best to hold on. "So do I, but I just, I can't."

"Then I wanna come with you." He said it because he would have never let himself say it in real life. This was only a dream, so he could say anything he liked.

But after a while, they parted. Of course they did; he knew they would because it had happened before, and before, and before. Emma looked at him for so long, he thought she was getting ready to tell him she was staying after all. When she spoke though, it was to say, "I'll see you soon. I promise."

Then she was walking out the door.

If this hadn't been a dream, if it had happened in the moment, Henry might have found some solace in that, despite that she was leaving him alone, powerless against Regina and her curse. But since this was the past, since it was a dream, he already knew he wouldn't even have that. Instead he would have

(_dreams formed of your own regrets_)

because if he'd only gone with her the night before, like they both wanted, everything would be all right.

And the question came to him again, as the nightmare cycled around once more.

What kind of dream _was _this?

* * *

If this was a dream, Henry decided, then he was going to change it.

Sometimes, when he knew he was sleeping, he would take control of the dream instead of waking up.

Since he couldn't wake up this time, he would have to concentrate really hard on the way he wanted it to go.

So into the car he climbed with Emma. When she asked him if he wanted to live with her, he said, more than anything.

When they drove through Storybrooke's empty night streets, he let himself sink into the bliss of her security. It was that bliss that kept making the next part so hard, to have it ripped away so violently. This time through, though, it would be different, because this time that wasn't going to happen. He was resolved, at last. No kid should ever know his mother's love after ten years of needing it so badly, only to have it taken from him again.

If this was real life, it would have been weakness. It would have been running away. They wouldn't have been heroes.

But it was only a dream.

So when they drove onto the woodland road and Henry looked in the backseat to see Emma's bag, and she told him that was all she needed, he said nothing.

And when they drove past the sign that read '_Leaving Storybrooke_', he smiled at her. She smiled back, and it was a brave smile.

The rest was pure fantasy.

The only thing they had, at first, was each other. Which was fine because it was the only thing Henry needed. Not a comfortable bedroom in a heartless mansion, but the peace of being loved, which meant being able to trust someone with all his heart. It meant knowing that no matter what, they were on the same side, they were in this together.

No more curses. No more fairy tales. No more Regina. Only happy endings.

Henry's dream world even let him meet his father, later on. He hadn't died after all, only suffered amnesia from hitting his head in the heroic fire rescue Emma told him about, and he'd been looking for them both ever since he recovered. Henry's imagination gave them a nice house, in a town kind of like Storybrooke except everyone aged properly and no one was trapped there from another world.

And they were a family, and he was so happy.

* * *

Then when it was over, when Henry awoke back to his bedroom in the mayor's house, that cold room where he wasn't loved, he sat there amongst the blankets and cried. He didn't want Regina to hear him, so he cried quietly. But he cried hard.

Dreams can be very real. Dreams can even take over from reality, for a time.

But dreams always end with waking up.


	4. Chapter 4: The False

**Chapter 4: The False**

* * *

Henry wiped his eyes dry on his sleeve. The boy stared vacantly at his covers, a brooding look upon his face. His cheeks were raw from tears, and his mind was the dark quiet place that follows letting loose such heavy feelings.

Rain fell against the windows. The mist outside was so thick he could barely make out the silhouettes of Storybrooke's buildings from where he sat.

He sniffed one more time, but he was ready to move on. He wished Emma was here. Even if he couldn't live with her, at least he'd feel better to just be next to her right now. There was nothing in the world like having a mother, as he'd discovered... or remembered. Because, there had been a time – and he couldn't recall it well, but there _had_ been a time – when he would have gone to Regina after waking from such a terrible dream.

Not that he would do that anymore, even if he did still think of her as his mother. He was ten, and if ten was old enough to track down his birth mother and travel to Boston alone, at night, then ten was old enough to handle a bad dream on his own. And besides, even when he had been young enough to run to Regina for help, even then he'd noticed how distant she was. The way she held him like she didn't quite understand what she was doing.

Then for a while, in their detachment, he'd tried to find ways for them to still be like a normal mother and son. Over time, it had reduced to just wishing they could be. Until at last, it became...

Henry shook himself. What was he doing? Regina was the Evil Queen, she was the _enemy_, and he was long past

(_regretting_)

that things should have been better between them. So how come, as he sat there in a bedroom full of leather-bound chronicles and other meaningless things she'd bought him, he felt so lonely? That was why he had Emma now.

He still had Emma, didn't he?

Henry sat up straight. Suddenly, he realised something was out of place.

In the nightmare, he'd felt terrible because, by not running away with her, he'd thrown away his chance at a happy ending. She'd come to tell him she was leaving without him, and then, and then...

Then she'd left?

No. In the dream she'd left. In real life, something else had happened. Something big.

Why couldn't he remember?

He felt disoriented. Disoriented, in an eerily familiar way.

Henry stood up. He went to his bedroom window, where the rain still pelted down hard.

This was just how he'd felt when he started to notice things weren't right in Storybrooke. It was as though some part of him was wired to recognise when things didn't add up, no matter what anyone else thought. His classmates never aged. No one ever did anything different. Nothing ever changed, not even...

Not even the clock.

Henry's heart dropped. He peered through the rain and mist at the tower. He had a feeling he already knew what he'd find.

The clock hands pointed to 8:15.

He recoiled from the window.

Impossible. They'd fixed that, they'd _changed_ it. There was only one explanation, the same one as when he'd first properly thought about that clock tower.

This world was false.

Here and now, he was still asleep.

A wave of dread washed through him. In the glass he could see his reflection, and he saw the ghost of a powerless boy. He squeezed his eyes shut. _Wake up, wake up, wake up_. Why couldn't he wake? Something bad had happened, something he couldn't remember.

He opened his eyes. There, behind his own reflection, stood another spectre.

Regina was not powerless. She was smiling, victorious, no longer dressed in the professional attire of Storybrooke's mayor but instead, wearing the funeral dress of an evil queen.

Henry spun around.

There was no one there.

Hesitantly, he flicked his eyes across the room. A sense of danger pervaded the place, an atmosphere of unease he'd been too distracted to notice before. Some instinct told him he had to do something, and fast.

If Regina had put him in an enchanted sleep, she might be in here with him. She might be looking for something.

Then he saw it, lying open on the bed where it hadn't been before, the way objects come and go in dreams. The book.

Henry raced over. Once Upon a Time was open to the middle page. Gripped with a sudden premonition, he turned to the back, and once more found exactly what he'd been expecting.

The last pages were intact. Not burned, not even torn out. In perfect shape, down to the tag on the blanket that read 'Emma'.

This was it, Henry realised. This was why Regina had put him into an enchanted sleep. She wanted to reach into his memories and find out what was on the final pages, and if she did –

If she did, she would kill Emma.

Henry's hands shook. They were in so much trouble. He had to hide the book, he couldn't let her see.

He flipped it shut and lifted his mattress up with a grunt. Once he'd pried it high enough, he snatched Once Upon a Time and thrust it under, and let the mattress fall.

And looked up to see Regina, standing in the doorway.

Henry froze.

His mother leaned against the doorframe, and crossed her arms. "What were you doing?" She had that unreadable _knowing_ look about her, and a hint of that same gloating smile he'd seen in the glass.

"I... was fixing the bed. One of the boards came loose." Henry smiled. Not very convincingly. It was harder when he could tell she saw straight through him.

"Really?" Regina said. "Maybe you should let me help." She made to move into the room.

"No, it's okay! I already fixed it."

She arched an eyebrow. She walked in, heels padding on the carpet.

Henry moved to block her path. "Okay, I put something under there," he said. "But you can't see it. It's private." Only, he realised too late, she never had cared much for his privacy. "It's for therapy," he went on. "Archie gave it to me. He said I didn't have to show anyone."

"Oh, Henry. Do you really think you can lie to me? I'm your mother."

He glared up at her. _You're not my mother_.

"Now, step aside," she commanded.

Henry held his ground.

"_Aside_," she said, and swept her hand.

There was a flash of light, and he was hurled to the far wall. All pretence was broken, she'd used magic. Body heavy, vision swimming, Henry looked up and saw her leaning over his bed, garbed now as the Evil Queen. She lifted the mattress like it was paper; synchronised to a blast of lightning outside, it crashed into his dresser. The tome rested on the boards.

"No!" he shouted.

Regina's hands curled delicately around it. "Now," she mused as she lifted it up. "Let's see what you went to so much trouble to hide from me."

Henry's mind raced. If he moved now, he could snatch it from her and run. How far would he get, in her nightmare world? He had to try. Emma's life was at stake.

But when he made to stand, his feet were numb, and he fell back again.

"Careful, Henry," Regina intoned, fingers flicking through the pages. "You don't want to break them."

Break them? Break... what?

He peered down. His stomach lurched.

Protruding from his pyjama pants were two stones carved in the shape of his feet. She had turned his feet to stone.

"I grew tired of losing, Henry," Regina said. "And now that I've finally won, I won't let anyone take that from me. Not even you." She turned to the book's final pages.

Henry struggled, reaching to pull himself up by the windowsill. As he did, his calves calcified, dropping him back down. He was trapped, she'd won.

She always won.

Regina's face lit up in triumphant mirth. From where he sat, Henry could see the last pages of Once Upon a Time, with baby Emma illustrated there so helpless. He realised too late that he could have just torn it up again.

"So." She rounded on him, pushing the open book at his face. "_This_ is your secret. You brought Emma Swan here to lift the curse. Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"

"I had to stop you," Henry said. "What you're doing to all these people. It's _wrong_."

"Henry. You're my son. You're not supposed to care about them. You were supposed to be loyal to your mother."

Henry cried out. The stone had climbed to his knees. "That's not what a hero would do," he said. "And _Emma's_ my mother."

"I raised you. I raised you when she abandoned you as an infant. I gave you everything, and still you refused my love. Why couldn't you have loved me?"

Henry gasped. An earthy crunch sounded over the rain as the rest of his legs fused to his pyjama pants as stone. "I wanted to," he said. "I did, but I needed you to be good."

"You weren't supposed to care about good, or evil. You weren't supposed to care about what a hero would do. _You were supposed to love me_."

Henry stared into her fiercely dark eyes. His entire lower half had solidified into a statue. He felt sick. She was meant to be his mother. Some small instinct in him would always feel that way. But the rest of him knew, no real mother would ever do this to her own child.

Why couldn't she have been who he needed her to be? Why did she have to be evil? If she'd only been good to him, he would have never needed to look for Emma, to fill the void left there.

Emma...

"Don't hurt her," he said. "Mom. Please don't hurt Emma."

Regina laughed. "That's not how evil works."

Henry fell back against the wall. He couldn't sit up anymore, his arms were going too, like Pinocchio turning inanimate once more, no longer a real boy.

_It can't end like this_, he thought. _Good has to win_.

But Storybrooke was Regina's happy ending. Even as he tried desperately to think of some way to outsmart her in this endgame, the only thing he could come up with was an answer to how he'd ended up here.

"The apple," he said. "You made me eat your poisoned apple."

"Oh, Henry." Regina's eyes had suddenly gone tender. "I never meant for you to eat it. I meant it for _her_." She reached out to stroke his cheek. "But now that you have, maybe it's for the best. She already poisoned your heart against me. You would have hated me for taking her from you in return. But this way, I'll never lose you. You'll be mine forever... asleep in the real world... a statue in this dream..."

That was as good as love to her, he realised. She didn't even know what love meant.

He'd only ever been a possession to her. It made no difference whether he was alive.

Henry slumped down, partly from the anguish of it, mostly because his entire body had frozen. A shoulder made of rock thumped onto the carpet.

_No,_ he thought. _Wait. This isn't right_.

"You always lied," he said. "You lie to everyone. You're even lying to me right now."

The stone crept to his neck.

Because the nightmare he was in, it was formed of _nothing but his own regrets_. He'd regretted not running away with Emma, even though he had to stay. Now he regretted the life he was supposed to live with Regina. He regretted that instead of that, she'd been cold, and heartless. He regretted that in his whole life, he'd never had a mother.

And that meant Regina wasn't real, not here. She was just another regret. Like the rest of this false awakening, like what she was doing to him, she was just a phantasm of his mind. None of it was real!

As she loomed over him, with triumph and something like affection lighting up her features, Regina hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. She had seen the change in his, as he pieced together what was happening here. And it gave her pause to doubt.

Henry sucked in his final breath, as the stone reached his chin.

"Henry," she said. As though she desperately needed to convince him that this nightmare was real, that she was real.

The apple, he realised. The apple was the final clue. It had never belonged to her. He'd read that in the book.

No, it belonged to –

"Maleficent!" he shouted with his last breath. "Maleficent! I call your trick! I CALL YOUR GAME!"


	5. Chapter 5: The Overdose

**Chapter 5: The Overdose**

* * *

From a corner the man watched and waited. He knew how to choose his moment; twenty-eight years had taught him patience. So he watched, unnoticed in the dim of the hospital ward, as she drew closer to her son.

"I'm sorry." She whispered it, but Jefferson heard. She even looked as though she might cry. No one else would have believed that even if they saw it, but he did. He believed, and that was why he'd chosen here of all places, just as deliberately as when she'd left her card on Grace's bike. Yes, a message: _I can do what I want, whenever I choose, to anyone I like. Including her._He wondered if she would spot the same threat now.

"Pity, isn't it."

She looked up. With his black jacket he might have blended in to the wall, but now he stepped into the light. Through the curtains it seeped, its cerulean hue making them look like ghostly veils.

"There's nothing harder than not knowing whether you'll ever see your child again," he said.

"Jefferson, now is not a good time."

A jape. Who was she to tell him about time?

"For you," he said. "Well for me, it's the perfect time." Jefferson waited, but he wasn't worth her attention, and Regina wouldn't look back up from her comatose boy. "I'm here to collect. Where..." A moment for hope, but by now, hope had withered into something so very tired. "Where is she. My daughter."

At last, she afforded him some scorn. "_Emma _was supposed to eat that apple, and she didn't! As far as I'm concerned, that makes our deal null and void."

He wasn't surprised. No, not at all surprised, not even disappointed. The stony gaze he held her with hinted at no such expressions, only weariness, an exhaustion beyond the point of longing, or fear, or limitation. It was the look of a man who knew, without question, that he had become capable of anything.

"I did what you asked, and you're going to screw me over again?"

"Look at it however you want, Jefferson! The fact is, I'm done with you."

"But I, I'm not done with you..."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Kill me? I know you want to, but I also know you can't."

"Do you?"

She scoffed. She held his gaze long enough to show how absolutely confident she was in what she said next._ "Yes. _You don't have it in you."

And yet she didn't know what confidence was.

Or how deeply she was mistaken. She had no idea what twenty-eight years could do to a man... to such a desperate, tired man. He would have no trouble killing her. He knew that for a fact. He could kill her right there and then, and enjoy it, enjoy feeling the pulse ebb so powerlessly from her neck. His hands would lock around her throat, a vice, complete control. Control would be the only thing left behind his tired eyes. He would do it right here over the body of her little boy, and he wouldn't care what happened next.

Yes. He knew he could.

But that would be too easy on her.

And twenty-eight years had taught him patience.

Patience, and more. That there were things in this world so very much worse than dying.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Regina said, quieter as an orderly slipped behind him to check the boy's vitals. "I have to save my son."

She was mocking him again. Mocking him with the power she held over his child. A power she didn't think was mutual.

She left. Jefferson watched her go.

He reached into his jacket pocket, idly, and toyed with one of the vials tucked away there. He rolled it between his fingers.

He was patient. He waited for the orderly to leave. She wouldn't remember him. Not that he cared, anymore, for the consequences.

Was there nothing harder than not knowing? No. Jefferson had lied. There was one thing.

He looked down at the boy.

Pity.

* * *

Henry reappeared in Maleficent's castle on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Dimly he was thankful to feel his skin _touching_ stone, instead of _being_ it. He could breathe again. His body was still in one piece. He was even back in the coat and scarf he'd worn on his last meeting with Emma – the details of which he now remembered in full, down to taking a bite from the turnover and what had come after.

Emma wasn't in any danger after all, at least as far as he knew. That was a huge relief. But he was still trapped here.

"Well played," rang Maleficent's voice from her throne.

Henry climbed to his feet.

"You made a mistake," he said. "You should have remembered I was the only one in Storybrooke who figured out about the curse. I'm used to noticing when things don't make sense."

Maleficent appraised him unsmilingly. "Really. And how do you know I didn't just grow tired of torturing a child, and decided to let you go? Perhaps I'm starting to find our game distasteful."

Henry gave her a look. He didn't think that was likely.

"Pleasantries aside," Maleficent said. "While you've been chasing nightmares, I've had one eye on the real world. And I have bad news."

"What?" Henry asked. "Did something happen to Emma?"

There was something different about her. She didn't seem to have the same thrill to her tone. Could she really be getting tired of this? She carried an almost melancholy air about her now.

"No," she answered. "You're dead, Henry."

He blinked.

He hadn't been expecting _that_.

"Uh... no, I'm not?"

"No, you're not, yet. But you will be soon enough." Maleficent sighed. "Our dear friend Regina was trading banter with a man over your bedside. And I'm afraid she was about as diplomatic as she always is. He may have taken offence, and slipped a vial of liquid into your mouth after she left."

Was it his imagination, or could he feel something cold and sick sliding down his throat at her words?

"Now, I don't know how poisons work in your world," she said. "But I don't expect you have long. Half an hour, perhaps. Or however long it takes him for to make some distance."

"You're lying," he said.

Maleficent just looked at him.

Panic gripped him. Those reptile eyes didn't even blink. Henry dashed to the foot of the stairs. "You have to wake me up!"

"And why would I do that?"

"Because," he said. "We both want to stop Regina. We're on the same side!"

Maleficent laughed, but this time there was a bitter edge to the way it sprinkled out into the chamber. "Boy. Even if I could break the spell, what do you propose I do about the poison? There is no magic left in Storybrooke. I can't cure you of that."

"But I'm under your spell right now," Henry said. "You're using magic to see into Storybrooke _right now_!"

"There is... an energy source. It's powerful, but I can only touch it faintly. It's enough for me to retain my powers of divination. Little more than that."

Henry looked at her helplessly. He was asking help from the one keeping him trapped here. If that was how bad things had gotten, he was in even worse trouble than he thought.

"When I sleep," she went on, "I join minds with the ones who've eaten from my apples. Their entire world becomes subject to my whim. I can do anything I want with them. I have complete control. You'll never know the rush of it. But, outside of here, I'm the one who's trapped. I have no power left in the real world."

"But if you could do something to stop Regina," Henry insisted, "if I could help you, you'd do it, right?"

Maleficent regarded him like she might be curious about what he had in mind. But then she said, "Of course not. Regina is my friend."

"She trapped you in here!"

"I don't cut deals with my victims."

Henry took a deep breath. Time was running out, but he needed to be patient. "Listen. You can use the magic you have to contact Emma. Tell her about the poison. Then she can tell the doctors, and then she'll have to set you free because she'll owe you. And then we can all stop Regina and break the curse together. _It'll work_."

He watched her. The seconds ticked away. Everything rested on what she said next; waiting wasn't easy. He was trading one villain for another, was that something a hero would do just to save himself? Maybe after they lifted the curse, he could make sure Emma had a backup ready so Maleficent wouldn't get her powers back.

It was a dangerous game. A dance between human and reptile, as the boy and the dark woman held each other's gaze. It was their only chance. If Henry died, Emma would never believe, and Regina would win.

"Well? Could you do it?" he asked.

"Perhaps."

"_Will_ you?"

Maleficent considered him for another painfully long moment.

"No," she said.

"But –"

"You should spend your last minutes more wisely than this," Maleficent said. "I will not help you."

"Why not?"

"I can't."

"Yes, you can!"

Maleficent stood. "Then I won't," she snarled. "You would only betray me anyway. You have my answer. Now go and die in peace."

Henry ran through his options. There weren't a whole lot left.

"You're just scared of what Regina will do to you," he said.

At that, she barely afforded him a smirk.

"You are!" he said. "You've got all this power here, but out there, you're afraid of her. That's why you won't do it!"

"Do you think I'm a fool? Regina doesn't have any power in Storybrooke either, not since she let loose the curse. You can't goad me into this, boy."

Henry had nothing left up his sleeve. Anyone else, he might have charmed or subtly guilt-tripped into it, but that would never work on someone as evil as Maleficent. He had to think of _something_. Time was almost up, and his only way out, the one holding all the power, refused to help him. Why, when he might be _her_ only way out too?

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I've already told you."

Henry tried one more time – it was all he could do. "This is your _only chance_ to escape."

"I disagree. I prefer to see how the situation develops. Perhaps it will work to my favour. Regina will learn about the power source that was stored inside me soon enough... I believe she'll try to acquire it, to save you. Whatever else you think of her, she does love you. In her own way. But, if she tries it, she will find herself outmatched." Maleficent seemed to study him. "You know, you are braver than I thought. I've broken men much older than you in minutes. They usually end up trying to plead with me. But not you, even when you're about to die. Perhaps the brave face wasn't an act after all."

Henry thought back to the nightmare he'd just had of Regina, where he'd begged her not to hurt Emma. She'd only laughed. Pleading would do no good here.

Maleficent sat back onto the throne. "You should make the best use of what time you have left," she said. "Brave or not, you'll find no help from me."

"Wait," he said.

But she waved a hand, as if dismissing him. The castle disappeared, and Henry felt rain on his face. He was somewhere else yet again, far away from his only way out, and with no time left.


	6. Chapter 6: The Reversal

**Chapter 6: The Reversal**

* * *

Storybrooke's centre avenue was quiet, but it had never been so full. Silently in black suits they came, with black umbrellas open against the rain.

It always rained in this dream, Henry noticed. It had even rained in the memory where Emma came to take him away. In real life, the only sound that night had come from the crickets and the motor of her little yellow car whirring away.

So, once again, the rain was the first thing to make him wonder if he might be dreaming. The second was realising, as all these morbidly-dressed residents of Storybrooke filed onto the street, that he had no idea what he was doing out here, at night, on his own. Dreamers never question how they end up where they are. That was how all of Storybrooke stayed asleep, after all.

He was getting better at Maleficent's game. He was learning to fight the nightmare's delirium.

But why did he feel so deeply uneasy when he tried to recall the last thing she'd said to him?

A wave of dread crashed over Henry as he realised why everyone was dressed in funeral suits. He remembered – and he almost wished he could forget. He almost wished he could sit down on the sidewalk and let the rain soak his hair and hope that when it happened, it wouldn't hurt.

He didn't want to die. Now death was all around him, whispering in the pattering water, written in the dark of the stormy sky. So close now that he felt it in everything he saw. He wanted to shout to the people gathering ahead that there'd been some mistake, he was only ten, things weren't supposed to turn out this way.

And the cold of the night air was an invitation to surrender. What could he do? Despair loomed on the edge of terror, each of them welcoming him. They were the phantoms of his every regret.

It made sense to give up there. He was _exhausted_.

But Henry knew that wasn't even a real choice. It wasn't something a hero would do.

_Emma _wasn't giving up. And that meant he wouldn't either. This hopelessness was just a feeling he used to fight every day, until she came into his life. As long as he stayed alive, she could still save him. And he would find a way too.

So towards that dark street he turned, rainwater dripping from his brow and a resolution set strong enough in his eyes to ward off the emotions haunting this nightmare.

Henry started off on a jog down the street. The umbrellas formed a continuous archway around him, a corridor for a death march. He didn't know yet what he was looking for, but he was turning the scene over in his head to figure it out.

Which regret was this one? As he peered left and right at the despondent souls waiting with eyes turned down and rain drumming their umbrellas, he thought: probably all of them. Maleficent would want to see him off with the biggest regret of all – that he rest of his life was gone now, that he would die never knowing if Emma had broken the curse, never even getting a chance to see her again.

He had to find someone here who could help him, and fast. Some clue to point him in a direction.

But none of these people would even meet his eyes. They all gazed instead at the puddles on the asphalt, and the dark clouds reflected in them. They were so pale, it was as thought they'd drowned in the downpour but stayed standing. They all looked the same, featureless, and almost corpselike.

Henry ran, stopping to search for a face he recognised. He saw only a ceremony of ghouls flanking him through this coma dream.

Then, as he went further along, some of the wraiths gave way to more familiar faces. People he'd seen on the street, people whose names he'd never learnt, but real people all the same. People with expressions! Mostly they stood in mourning, weeping silently or just staring into space. Were they crying for _him_? That didn't make sense, none of them had ever known him, or if they did it was as 'the mayor's kid', or as their child's classmate.

Dreams weren't supposed to make sense, but... something nagged at him. He'd pieced together Storybrooke's secret, now he should be able to figure out what was happening here too.

They mingled indiscriminately with the lifeless ones, a crowd of Storybrooke's lost denizens. Not a single one he could turn to for help... until he sighted Ruby.

"Red!" he cried.

Ruby had actually dressed for the occasion. She looked as uncomfortable in funeral black as he would have expected – but, where Henry might have also expected her to squirm and complain about it, instead she was looking away as though trying not to cry.

They all looked so lost, Henry thought. Lost, and confused. Like they knew something was terribly wrong, but they had no idea where to begin, and no hope left.

That was when it clicked. No, they weren't mourning him – not _just_ him, anyway. But they were relying on him and Emma to save them, so if he was dying, then they were mourning themselves.

And the ghouls among them, they weren't dead, even though they looked it. They were cursed.

It was a lament for the life that had been stolen from them, the life he was supposed to help bring back. The life he'd _wanted_ to bring back, but now he'd failed them, and they would be trapped here forever.

"Red!" Henry shouted. "Ruby! You have to help me, it's not too late to stop the curse!" But Ruby only stared, vacantly, away from him. "Ruby!"

"Henry..." came a voice from behind him.

Henry turned to see Paige, the sweet blond girl in his class, and the only one who ever talked to him, even if it was only in passing. Behind her stood a group of other kids from his class, and former classes that had never grown older with him. They were dressed in black suits too, soaking wet and some of them shivering in the cold, and they were all avoiding his eyes, looking down at the road... all of them except her.

"We're sorry, Henry," Paige said. "None of us ever tried to be friends with you. We never even let you play with us. Our parents all told us you were, well..."

It was strange. In spite of everything, even knowing Paige was just another ghost in this dream, Henry still let himself get distracted when she talked to him. He suddenly found himself wishing things could have been different for them too. She was such a _nice_ person. But in all the games with the others, he tended to get left aside, somehow forgotten every time. No one paid him enough attention to even pick on him. It had just been a thing of indifference, until he didn't bother memorising the names of classmates who wouldn't be following him into the next grade anyway.

The memories of his last five years in school rose then as a wave of loneliness threatening to swallow him. His whole life had been so strange, no wonder all the other kids kept their distance.

But Henry wasn't going to let himself get lost in the regrets of this dream, not now.

He shook his head. "Paige, it's okay, it's not your fault. It's the curse, you're all asleep."

He wanted to make her remember, ask for help, but she was backing away with a sad look in her eyes, like there was some wall between them and she couldn't hear him. They were all walking back, into the crowd of adults where they vanished again behind taller statures, and hid there peering at him. They were trapped, and he was the only one who'd ever known.

"You always did care so much about that curse."

This time when Henry turned, it was Archie looking down at him, and his lucky umbrella was the same colour as everyone else's.

"I know you think I'm crazy," Henry said. "You and Emma thought I was crazy all along. But I'm not."

Archie smiled, that doctor's smile, that all-knowing adult's smile. "I don't think you're crazy, Henry. But I still worry about you. It's not healthy, putting so much into a story. You've ended up so far from real life."

As always with Archie, Henry couldn't help but feel frustrated. He'd _needed_ to break the curse. He'd needed to...

"I needed to make things right," he murmured.

Archie laid a hand on his shoulder. "I understand. You needed something to believe in. It was all you had."

Henry looked up at him. Could that be right? Before Emma, he hadn't had anything else, no friends, no real mother, nothing to hope for. In a way, it was true, he'd _needed_ Storybrooke to have a problem he could try to fix. So quickly it became all he could think about, the only thing that mattered.

"Henry," Archie said. "I can help you. I've been trying to help you. You can trust me."

All of a sudden, he felt very small.

He was just a kid, really. How had things gone so far? What if this dream was really just his mind coming undone, what if he was crazy after all? It was just as horrible as the alternative: that he was about to die. He needed someone to see how scared he was, how desperate. He needed someone to take over and show him what to do.

He needed that. But...

Henry stepped back. He looked at Archie a moment longer, wanting to take his hand.

Instead, he turned and ran.

"Henry!" Archie called after him. "Henry!"

Absurdly, he felt a pang of guilt. He could glimpse himself from Archie's position, as a confused child who needed help, and Archie was only trying to do what was right.

But Archie didn't understand.

Sneakers slapped against the wet road. Henry didn't slow down, but the mourners around only watched. Rain fell on his face, and the clock tower loomed ahead.

Then, standing out from the crowd, he saw a black-haired woman with such a friendly and innocent face, looking warm in her woollen jumper despite the weather.

"Miss Blanchard!" he said, though he wanted to say 'Snow White' or even 'Grandma'.

She held a book to her chest. Once Upon a Time.

"Henry," Mary Margaret said when he stopped before her. She looked so concerned for him. It was amazing a person could _care_ so genuinely. "When I gave you this book, I wanted you to have something to believe in. There isn't anything in the world more powerful than that. If you can hold out for hope, then anything is possible."

Something about that struck him as strange. A hint, perhaps, or the start of one.

The dream was supposed to be formed of his regrets. This was no regret.

"Miss Blanchard," he said. "Can you help me? I need to..."

But Mary Margaret was already fading back into the crowd. Like Paige, she only passed him by in this dream.

When Henry tried to follow her, the faceless ghouls blocked his path, and she was gone.

On the opposite side of the street he saw a figure moving behind the onlookers, dressed all in black, but it was a more ornate dress than anything the others were wearing. Regina sighted him there, and in her expression he saw... shame? Sorrow? She looked away before he could make it out, and vanished as well.

Henry felt a surge of anger. If she hadn't tried so hard to hurt Snow White, or if she'd at least left him alone, he could have had a normal life. He wouldn't be walking this death aisle past all the shadows of everything that had ever gone wrong for him.

But he shook the thought off. There wasn't any time for that.

The next one he saw was August. His movements looked stilted as he walked onto the road with a grimace, like one leg might be made of wood, but the funeral suit obscured it so Henry couldn't be sure. August may have come dressed like everyone else, but that didn't stop him from slinging the tie over his shoulder as he stopped before Henry. Gazing around like it was any other day and not a nightmare at the end of both their lives, he asked, "So, how are you holding up?"

"Not a lot better than you," Henry admitted, though August's countenance somehow managed to lighten the mood. It was easy to imagine he really would look this cool with rainwater trickling down his beard – and there was no way he'd let a funeral for a death that hadn't happened yet ruin that. "I tried to be a hero, but I think maybe I just got myself killed."

August scoffed. "Kid, there was no 'trying' about what you did. That was the real deal. And if there's one thing I know about the world we come from, it's this: courage pays off. Good wins."

"But it didn't work," Henry said. "August, Emma still doesn't believe. We're both gonna die for nothing."

August crouched down, and looked about as though checking none of the ghouls were listening. Henry had found that kind of thing annoying at first, but, it had sort of grown on him. "Yeah, maybe," August said. "But I wouldn't give up that easy. Ah hell, maybe I already did. But you shouldn't. What this world needs is a hero. That's what a happy ending takes. Well, now it has two."

At that, August shifted his eyes to the right. When Henry turned, he saw Emma standing a little while off, under the clock tower.

"Emma." Henry ran for her.

August had seemed so sure. Again it seemed strange. This dream wasn't supposed to allow for hope, least of all when he was so close to the end. What could he possibly do? Emma still thought magic was just for fairy tales and that was the only thing that could wake him up, and even if she _did_ wake him up, it would be too late to stop the poison. Still he kept looking for a way out. Did August know something?

He looked back, and August just stood there watching him. When he turned to Emma again, she was gone.

"Emma!" he called. She'd vanished. "Emma, please, you have to listen! It's _real_, the curse is real, you have to believe that now or you won't be able to wake me up!" He didn't know what he was doing. He knew she wasn't really here at all. Did he think if he shouted loud enough, she'd hear him back in the hospital ward? That was stupid, but what else could he try? He didn't know what to _do_.

In desperation, he looked up at the clock tower. The hands were ticking backwards, the minutes reverting every second, the hour hand on its steady way back to an unknown deadline.

Maybe the hope in this dream was only there to drag him deeper down into despair when it all came undone. Henry clenched his hands into fists. The clock was like a riddle he couldn't solve with what precious little time it was ticking away. There was nothing left to try, but there had to be an answer, there _had_ to be.

Then a voice spoke from behind him. "You know Henry, if it's clocks you're after, you might have wanted to visit my shop."

Henry started and spun around. "Mr Gold."

Mr Gold was one of the few not dressed for the occasion. He wore his usual russet-brown suit and walked in step with his cane, and didn't seem to notice the downpour.

"You look a little lost, lad," Gold said. "Anything I might be able to help you with?"

Henry pulled back. He didn't trust the dream Gold any more than he trusted the real one.

"No?" Gold crossed around him, to where something flat and wooden had materialised at the foot of the tower. He stretched an arm out to it. "Then perhaps you'd like to climb in."

Henry's stomach turned as he realised what he was looking at. It was a coffin.

He swallowed hard, and shook his head.

"Now what made me guess you weren't one to give up so easy?" Mr Gold flashed him a grin. "But if you're not going to lie down and die for all these nice people, that begs the question. What _are_ you going to do, Henry?"

"I don't know," Henry said.

"Well then. Seems you're at an impasse. Can't move forwards... won't drop dead. And yet..." Gold waved a finger left and right. "Tick tock."

"Are you gonna help me or not?"

"Oh I can't help you, Henry. I'm not real. None of this," he swept his arms out to the rain, "is real. It's all a dream. There's only two things here that are real, and those are you... and _her_."

Henry's heart hammered. "So? She won't even talk to me. She's the one in control. I can't do anything."

"She's not as in control as you might think."

In the dark, Mr Gold's affable smile seemed to hint at something more devious. He carried himself as though he had all the time in the world. Henry glanced up at the clock. All the time in this world was fading fast around them. He wavered on the spot out of nervous energy, but he kept his mouth shut. It wouldn't help him to hurry this man.

"If I were in your position," Gold said, "and – thank the gods but I'm not – I would start by asking what this place is."

"A dream." Henry sighed. "Formed of my own regrets. That still doesn't help me."

Mr Gold raised a finger. "_Your_ regrets? Behind everything she does, behind every bad memory she puts you through, don't you think she has regrets of her own? They're what drive her to do the nastier things she does. Do you understand?"

"I... think so," Henry said. The slightest hint of a chance was starting to kindle inside him, but, what was Mr Gold getting at? "You're saying Maleficent turned evil to start with because of bad stuff that happened to her." That was how a lot of these stories went, he knew. "It's why she likes putting other people through their regrets, so she can feel stronger."

"And, if this is a dream you're both in..."

Henry almost couldn't breathe when it hit him. It was an answer, a way out!

But still it was such a _small_ chance...

"Then I can go into her mind too!" he said

Mr Gold smiled. "Precisely."

"How?" Henry asked, starting forwards. "She's stronger than I am, how do I do it?"

"You're a clever boy, you'll figure it out."

"But it's too late. I don't have time!"

Mr Gold chuckled quietly at that. "On the contrary, Henry. I would say time is the only thing you _do _have left."

Henry looked at him. A desperate energy surged through his body. His legs were poised to move.

Breathing frantically from adrenaline, he peered back down the street. All the darkened residents of Storybrooke were turned to face him. They waited to see what he would do. These final moments were all he had. It was this, or climb into the coffin.

He turned to Gold. To the clock tower, ticking backwards.

Henry steadied his breath.

He ran for his life.


	7. Chapter 7: The Trespasser

**Chapter 7: The Trespasser**

* * *

As he ran, night gave way to dawn. The sun bled onto the trees ahead. Henry's scarf, flecked with water, whipped up in the wind to brush his face. If he could only clear the town's borders, escape the boundaries of his dream into hers, he might stand a chance.

He needed to turn this nightmare around and enter Maleficent's mind. Not to control her dreams the way she was controlling his. This place belonged to her, she wouldn't let him do that. But, just maybe, he might find something there to sway her, and get her to help him.

It wasn't much, but it was all he had.

Henry bounded off the streets and into the forest. He didn't know how long he ran for, and he had no memory of how far he'd travelled. The sun came up into midmorning, and the downpour turned to a drizzle and then to a clear, dry day. It might really have been hours. But time is fickle in dreams, and Henry didn't think he'd been running for nearly as long as it felt.

After all, if he had, he'd be long dead.

The peace, the sudden change of mood, compelled him to slow to a jog. Gone were the ghouls of his funerary nightmare. Birds chirped, the forest air smelled fresh. Henry came to a complete stop and looked about. There was something different about this place.

Not a thing he could see, or hear or touch or smell. Really, it was more of a hunch. An impression, like things were different here. More magical, even.

Could this be the enchanted forest?

If it was, then it had worked. It had really worked! He was inside Maleficent's dream.

Now he just had to find her, and convince her to help him.

When he looked down, Henry saw a trail leading on.

Excited, letting himself dare to hope, he followed it. It wound its way through a gateway formed of two titanic trees, the kind he never would have seen in the world he came from. It led, soon enough, to a wide clearing filled with nothing but grass and a humble cottage.

Henry made to run forward. But he'd barely taken a step when the cottage door opened, and a hooded figure stepped outside. Beneath his peasant's robes the man seemed to float, and he moved so quietly and deliberately that he radiated with malevolence.

Henry froze for the slightest second. Then he stole off the track, and ducked behind a canopy of rocks to watch.

The man stopped. His gaze turned to the spot where Henry hid. He couldn't have seen the boy... but he still took a moment, as if checking the air, as if he could smell him.

Clutching one of the rocks, Henry kept his head low. He knew this was only a dream, and anyway, at this point he had nothing left to fear. Still despite everything he'd been through though, even the car crash and being turned to stone and walking a street full of ghouls, all he knew was he didn't want this man to see him.

_You're running out of time_, he reminded himself. But something told him to wait.

In the clearing, the figure drew back his hood, and Henry breathed out in relief. Just an ordinary man. Balding and with a beet-red face and perhaps overly intense eyes, but nothing to be alarmed about.

"Daughter!" the peasant called. "Daughter!"

Almost at once, a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen came running from the bushes. Her hair was blond, and curly like what remained of her father's, and – though Henry had to look closer to believe this – she had a huge black lizard with yellow spots perched on her shoulder.

She stopped before the man, and seemed to curl up meekly under his gaze. They started talking. Henry couldn't make out the words, only that her voice was timid and his, deep and foreboding. Henry chewed his lip, but ended up deciding to move closer.

Going prone by a log at the edge of the clearing, he noticed something didn't quite seem right about the peasant. The shade of his skin was a sickly greenish-yellow. And his eyes kept bulging out like they might pop.

He was saying, "Next time, you must tell me when you leave home."

"I will, Father. I promise."

He peered at her for a long time. It reminded Henry of Regina, how she would let a silence drag out long enough to make him shift on the spot, trying to guess at what she was thinking, and whether she really saw straight through to what _he_ was thinking, as she appeared to.

At last the man said, "Go inside. It's time for your lesson."

The girl wavered on the spot. In her face Henry thought he saw the slightest hint of defiance.

But then she turned and made for the cottage, with the lizard scurrying from one shoulder to the next.

The peasant followed after a pause, and closed the door.

Henry wasn't sure what to do next. Had he even come to the right place? If not, he'd already lost what little time he had left.

Eyeing the hut anxiously, he hopped the log and dashed forward. He kept away from the window's line of sight until he reached the wall. His heart pounded. Not the poison, he told himself – just that getting so close to this figure felt like dancing around a snake.

Fingers on the windowsill, Henry peered inside.

The interior was unremarkable. A single room with two straw beds led into a medieval kitchen, with berries in a basket on the counter. The girl sat on a stool by one of the beds and watched her father apprehensively. The lizard ran down her arm to curl up in her lap.

Her father was pacing, appearing half-mad as he wrung his fingers together. Henry couldn't help feeling intrigued.

"Magic," he said to the girl, "is all about power. And power, power is all about control."

Then he swept his hand, and the lizard levitated off her lap.

The girl leapt up. "Father, no!"

The lizard was thrashing, sinuously twisting and coiling itself in mid-air. It hissed, and – Henry watched this in amazement – it started spitting tendrils of fire from its mouth.

"Control is being able to command your surroundings, to always do as you please," the man mused, turning the lizard through the air with his hands. "It means you need never fear pain again, for pain is yours to wield."

"Father... please..."

"It means being able to punish for transgressions."

When a fork of flame caught on to one of the straw beds, the man – the sorcerer – snuffed it out with the most incidental brush of a finger. The girl dropped her gaze. "I'm... I'm sorry. Please."

At once, the lizard fell to the floor. She knelt to scoop it to her chest and hugged it tightly, as a child might a teddy bear.

The sorcerer regarded her for a moment. "Do you see? Do you see what I'm trying to teach you? With this power you can do _anything_. You never need to fear the way you feared now, not ever again. _You_ are the one in control. I want that for you, child."

The girl mumbled something.

He leaned closer. "What did you say?"

She looked up. Henry thought that, amongst the fear, there was bravery in her eyes too. "I said I want you back to the way you were before."

The man sighed. "I see you're still not listening to me. If that is what you want – then make it so. Learn this power, and bend me to your will."

The girl petted the lizard. "Mother said there were other things you could use magic for. She said you can use them for good."

"Do not speak of that woman in front of me."

A deeper darkness had fallen over the man and his next breaths came heavy with malice.

"I permit you to see her once to a season, dear girl, out of my love for you. If you would have more than that, then you will need to take it with this power. Else quieten your tongue, or you shall not see her at all."

Henry could barely hear the girl when she said, "You loved her before, too."

Suddenly the scene had changed. Henry looked around to see the grass in the clearing had grown shorter, and frost bit at its tips. Snow had begun to line the branches on the trees, and the forest was as white as it was green. It was a different day, on the steppes of winter.

He was startled back to attention by a shuffling noise in the cottage. Henry ducked down, thinking the dark sorcerer must have seen him. But when he hesitantly raised his head again, the man wasn't even there. Instead, there was a woman kneeling by the girl's bedside, robed in a thick winter cloak, with black hair lacing out from beneath her hood.

The girl was sitting up, wiping sleep from her eyes. "Mother? You're not supposed to be here now, it's only been two moons! If he sees you –"

"He won't. But there isn't much time. You need to come with me, now."

The breathless look on her face was one Henry thought he might be familiar with. "We're leaving? But... he'll kill you."

"First he'll have to find me. Come."

Henry watched. The girl was putting on boots, while her mother scanned the windows as a wizened sentry. Henry managed to duck just in time to avoid being seen. Then the cottage door opened, and mother and daughter fled across the field, with the girl pausing only to scoop up her salamander lizard.

Henry didn't hesitate this time. He followed.

They were heading up the trail he'd come from. Henry darted into the bush again, and followed them stealthily along the road.

"We must move quickly," the woman was saying, her voice both maternal and strong. "There is a boat, it sets out in a day's time and where it sails, even he won't be able to follow. We must –"

"Mother!" the girl shouted.

They came to a halt, and so did Henry. On the road ahead, with arms folded across his robes and chin jutting out from the hood, stood the sorcerer.

As if to enunciate his presence, a roll of thunder shuddered through the earth. There were storm clouds blowing in.

Henry skirted closer, nimbly, unseen. On the road, the woman stepped in front of her daughter. "It doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to do this."

Beneath his hood, the sorcerer's voice was deeper, gravelly, and utterly unyielding. "First you tried to steal my power with a kiss. Now you want to take her from me too?"

"Zoso. You don't have to do this. Remember what I told you. You can control it. You're the one in control."

"Yes," he said. "I am."

His eyes flared, and a ripple of energy warped the entire road. The woman was raised off the ground, head peeled back and grimacing against pain.

"Father!" the girl screamed, running forward to pound his arm. "No, you can't, you _can't_!"

He threw her to the dirt with a shrug, and started forward. "I lived my entire life with nothing but the power to beg," he said. "The girl needs to see." And as he walked, he reached into his robe, to draw a twisted knife with a word embroidered into it.

Henry gripped the tree he was leaning on. He'd seen that dagger before, in a drawing. This was only a dream, but... as he watched, the terror in the young girl's voice from where she lay cut straight to his heart.

"I won't go with her! I'll stay with you, just let her go! You can't do this, no, _please_!"

"Zoso." With her own hood cast back, the woman had colour flushing her snowy cheeks, but those austere features didn't show a trace of fear. She had Regina's pride, but none of her pettiness. "I know the love you once had for me won't move you anymore. But, for the love of our daughter –"

He stabbed her through the chest.

Henry recoiled. He covered his mouth with his hands to keep from shouting out.

The girl screamed. She shrieked so loudly there wasn't a coherent word to be heard, just hysterical pain as she bent over in despair. Henry's eyes were wide open in shock. His legs went weak and he had to hug the tree to stay up. This violence was like nothing he'd ever seen... to him it was almost supernatural, a violation of his world, the blackest magic.

The man coldly watched as the life drained from her heart and eyes, before he drew back the dagger. Her body slumped to the earth.

The girl was crying "No, no," in between tears. "Bring her back. You bring her _back_!"

But the man only peered down at his blade, where the engraved name 'Zoso' glistened in blood.

He spared his daughter a glance, and began walking slowly back to the village.

The girl sat there, her dress in a heap, rocking back and forth as her grief turned from screams to mere sobs. She crawled, as though the weight of what had just happened wouldn't allow her to stand. She fell over her mother's body and buried her face in her arms.

Henry's mind reeled. He felt he'd just witnessed something that could never be unseen. The knife, tipped red with murder, would leave an imprint on his memory forever.

There came another roll of thunder, and rain fell at once.

Over the two bodies. Washing blood away in a stream.

The girl made no sound, but sobs racked her where she lay.

The lizard climbed up onto her mother's body. When its claws touched the girl's skin, she looked up and hugged it close once more.

"Diablo," she said. A strange look stole over her face. "Oh, Diablo. That man wasn't my father. My father would never, never..."

And with each word, the loss in her tear-streaked eyes gave way to something colder. She was breathing raggedly not with grief, but with hate. A brooding hate that stilled the crying, stilled all but the darkest emotions. Until there was nothing else left, because all the other feelings were broken.

As she looked up, fallen there over her mother's body, Henry knew she was going to see him. But he couldn't move. From the road, Maleficent locked eyes with him, and she was a shadow of what she was to become.


	8. Chapter 8: The Salamander

**Chapter 8: The Salamander**

* * *

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

Henry steadied himself on the tree. He didn't know what to say.

The girl Maleficent looked shattered with the storm pouring over her. The bark grew wet against he hands. Henry wiped his fringe aside to see her through the downpour. It had never rained so hard in his parts of the dream.

"I'm sorry about your mother," he called.

Maleficent ignored him. She stepped over the dead woman, with Diablo still scurrying across her shoulders. As she walked off the path towards him, her adolescent figure dropped away like a discarded cloak. She grew older, and taller, and harsher. By the time she stopped before him, she was an adult again, with reptile eyes.

Somewhere in the transformation, Diablo had disappeared.

Henry looked up at her warily. Fat droplets of rain kept hitting his eyes, making her hard to see.

"Well," she asked, "did you?"

Henry shook his head. "I... don't know."

Maleficent sighed. With a wave the deafening downpour stopped, and they were back to the stony quiet of her fortress.

Water still trickled from their hair, pooling puddles at their feet.

"And who do you suppose is going to clean that up?" Maleficent turned from the boy, and sauntered up the steps to her throne.

Henry couldn't figure her out. He would have never imagined someone that evil in tears over her mother, but... what he'd seen had been so horrible, he could almost understand how she'd turned out that way. Then she'd gone from blind rage to aloof and sarcastic. Yes, he'd found her. But, even though there must be almost no time left, he had no idea what to say.

Seating herself, and looking perfectly collected even after having relived her most painful memory, Maleficent trilled her fingers on the armrest. "You seemed so determined to find me, I decided to give you a chance. How else do you think you were able to make it into my part of the dream? Where do you think you got the idea from in the first place? Don't imagine for a moment that you pulled it from your own mind. Gold was my puppet."

"Why, though?" Henry asked. "Why did you let me see what happened to you?"

She didn't answer straight away, as she observed the boy and crossed her legs.

"Because," she said, "I could. Because I chose to. Having that kind of power over someone is a fantastic thing. I chose to exercise it."

Henry stepped forward. "That's not the reason."

Maleficent continued as if he hadn't spoken. "The man who was once my father taught me all about power, of course. Killing my mother was his hardest lesson. I hated him for that, but it was the moment I understood, he was right after all. Control is what matters most in life. I was so sick of being powerless."

Henry remembered the young girl, crying over her mother. Had she gone back to the cottage after that, head bowed, to tell her father she was ready to learn? Had she sworn then in secret that she would do whatever it took to destroy him?

"What happened to Diablo?" he asked. "Your pet?"

"I sacrificed him. Years later, at that man's bequest, to attain a great power. It was another harsh lesson, but... there were always other pets. I had a crow next."

As she spoke, Henry started to form a plan, the only way he could think to get through to her.

"He twisted you up," Henry said. "Your father was evil. He just wanted to make you evil like him."

"That man," Maleficent said, "was not my father. My father was little more than a beggar, until a passer-by dropped that knife in his lap. That was when he became someone else."

"You must have really hated him," Henry said. "You must have wanted to kill him."

Her eyes twinkled. "At first. Then I realised, for a man like that, there are things so much worse than death. In the end I stole that dagger, the source of his power, and gave it away to the pettiest man I could find. A miser, who used it to bind the man to his will, for the most pitiful of aspirations. And for all he could do, that man who was once my father, he became powerless. A slave."

She said it like she was drifting into a pleasant past-time. After a pause, she came back to the chamber. "But here we are, blethering on about me while the last seconds of your life tick away. Now isn't that rude of me?"

"Maleficent." Henry trotted up the stairs towards her. "Don't you understand? This is what your mother was trying to tell him, you don't have to be evil just because bad things happened to you. You can still make the choice to be good."

She smiled, as if amused at his childish ideals.

"As long as you keep doing these things, he's the one in control," Henry said, not letting himself be deterred. "He tried to make you evil, so if it worked, it means you're still letting him win."

"You really are wise beyond your years," Maleficent said. "Such a shame."

"I know you're not all evil," he said. Desperation started to slip into his voice at her nonchalance.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because..." Henry took a deep breath. "Because you care about me."

Maleficent looked torn between outrage and laughter.

"Little boy," she said, "the only reason I let you into my memory was because it amused me."

"No it's not. You haven't treated me as bad as you'd treat everyone else. You were sad when you told me I was gonna die. I didn't know why then, but now I do. It's because I remind you of you. Don't I?"

He watched those dragon-egg eyes narrow at him. It was impossible to guess what her reaction was, but she hadn't stopped him, so he kept going.

"I made you think of when you tried to run away with you mother. I bet you spent every day since then regretting what happened. But when you saw my memory of leaving Storybrooke with Emma, and escaping from Regina... it made you think about what should have happened instead. And how it could still happen for me. Didn't it?" He waited, but she only stared at him. "It did, didn't it?"

"So what do you want me to do?" Maleficent leaned forward, clutching the armrests, until she was face-to-face with Henry. "Tell you mother it will take a spell to wake you up? And then where will she find one in time, when I've already told you Storybrooke is out of magic? And even if she somehow managed that, what then? You'd have perhaps a minute with her, time enough to say goodbye before the poison stopped your heart. Is that what you want? It's worth nothing, when it all ends the same way." She rested back. "Nothing in any world can save you now, boy. You are going to die. Accept it."

Henry looked at her helplessly. Hope had been the one thing keeping him gong, but every word she'd spoken had sapped it from him.

"But I have to try," he whispered.

Maleficent waved a hand apathetically. Slouched into the throne, she no longer looked so vain or regal. "Besides," she said, "Emma already knows about the curse."

"So..." Henry breathed. "You lied? But you said if I called you on a trick –"

"Don't get excited yet. She figured it out _after_ I told you she didn't know. So I didn't lie about that, or about the poison. I simply mean there's no part I can play in saving your life."

Henry turned on her angrily. "You could have told Emma about the poison the whole time. She could have told the doctors, and they could have saved me."

"But I didn't," Maleficent said. "I chose not to."

Suddenly, her eyes lit up, like she'd seen something. Henry followed her gaze, but the chamber was empty. All the same she rose up, and started walking down the stairs.

Henry followed her. "Maleficent, wait. You can still do it. There's still a chance, I know you don't think happy endings are real but I can show you!"

"It's too late," Maleficent said as she walked. "I will make you this offer only. I can transport you into a dream where you won't remember any of this. You'll have everything you ever wanted, and whatever scant time you have left, it will stretch on to seem like the rest of your childhood."

"I don't want that," Henry said. "I want what's real. I want to go home."

"Then stay here. I am leaving. By the time I return, you'll be dead."

Henry jogged to keep pace with her strides. "Where are you going?"

"Someone is coming."

"Who?"

The fortress doors clanked open, and from beyond them came a blinding light that outshone the entire chamber. She stopped, and turned down to him. "Your bitch mother."

Henry stood, confused, as she kept walking. "Regina?"

Just short of the door, Maleficent stopped, and half-turned back. The light held her silhouette there as an imprint of darkness.

"Regina was never your mother," she said.

And then she was gone.

* * *

Henry stood, alone, in the chamber. Breathing unevenly, he looked around. The door was shut again, and he had nowhere to go.

Maleficent's final words were catching up to him. Emma. Emma knew about the curse, and she was fighting for him!

But... His heart sank as he remembered what she'd said about Diablo, the salamander. How she'd sacrificed him for some great power. He thought he might know what that power could be.

Would Emma stand a chance? Was it already too late to save him anyway?

_We're so close,_ he reminded himself._ I believe in happy endings_, _I still do_.

"Maleficent!" he yelled, his young voice echoing off the walls. He didn't know if she could hear him, but he had to try. "Maleficent, you don't have to fight her! You can use the power source inside you to wake me up! You can still choose good!"

He spun around. Silence was his only answer.

He sank to the foot of the stairs, and hugged his knees. He stared at the stone floor.

It was not long after that the fortress began to get cold. Henry held himself tighter, shivering. There was no ice forming on the walls, rather it felt like the chill of a tomb, where the mood of decay would drag him into permanent silence.

He felt so tired, so heavy it was hard to be scared. And what was that noise, drifting through the chamber walls? His head swam, but he tried to make it out. It overlapped itself, surreal, in myriads of mysterious emotions. It was a voice, he realised. A voice he recognised.

"_And yes, she was beyond hope... beyond saving... this was her end. When Prince Charming saw his beloved Snow White in her glass coffin, he knew all that was left was to say goodbye. He had to give her one last kiss. And when he did, true love proved more powerful than any curse. A pulse of pure love shuddered out and engulfed the land, waking up Snow White and bringing light to the darkness."_

Darkness swallowed the light. Henry collapsed. What had started as exhaustion turned now into total paralysis. Tiredness so complete, it was beyond all possibility of ever getting up again, no matter the strength of will. His body was like stone again. And then he was leaving it, and he was nowhere at all, as it shut down. His mind was spiralling into nothing, and there wasn't a thing he could do. Only the voice remained now, like the final commandments of a goddess.

"_Henry... when I gave you this book, it was because I knew..."_

The voice faltered, but it returned again.

"_I know _life_ doesn't always have a happy ending."_

It quavered then with the pain of tears.

"_But I thought..."_

_Was I wrong the whole time?_ he wondered. _Are happy endings really just for stories?_

It was his final thought, before it all went black.


	9. Chapter 9: The Threshold

**Chapter 9: The Threshold**

* * *

"No response. Is the defibrillator charged? Do it."

"Clear!"

A whir, and a discharge pounded into the young boy's chest. He jolted and flopped back to the bed like he was a CPR doll. His eyes stayed closed and his jaw hung slack beneath the breathing mask. The colour was already starting to fade from his skin.

"Clear!"

Another shock, and the monitor kept flatlining.

"Come on, Henry..."

"Clear!

"_Clear!_"

Henry was out of the coma dream, dissociated at the top of the room. Down below his body grew steadily paler even as Dr Whale and the others around charged his chest with electricity. They were trying so hard, even calling to him as though it might help him fight for life. But they didn't know, that wasn't him on the hospital bed. What lay there now was dead and fading.

"_Clear..._"

"You are going to die. Accept it."

Maleficent's voice in his memory, echoing into all the other things she meant when she said it. _You will never see Emma again. What you wanted in life does not matter. I do not care. You will find no solace with me._

Maleficent, turning away to seat her dream throne. Gripping his chin and mocking him. Studying him with coldest eyes. Dancing his life through her spindly fingers. Maleficent, the girl fallen over her mother's body, resurfacing inside the monster she'd become, to let herself see this little boy with the slightest shard of hope. The disappointment she tried to hide behind a wall of her hardest tones, when she discovered he was to die after all.

Maleficent, caught in the void of a nightmare all her life, in the anguish of a coil twisted around her heart. A lost little girl staring out at the stars, turning in circles. He saw straight through to her soul.

"_Clear..._"

Henry turned down to the scene below. When were they going to stop? It was already over.

It was August next. Aloof, suave, not to be trusted, because behind the show, he didn't trust himself. A different persona in the solitude of his room, writing frantically by the light of a single candle. So tired, wanting dearly to just walk away, but pulled back in every time.

"So... everyone's giving up."

"I'm afraid I don't have a choice." Resting his forehead against the door; August didn't believe it, but then, he'd never chosen this for himself to begin with, so why should he let himself have a choice now? Wouldn't it be easier to leave it in the hands of one more lone child? Had anyone done any better for him? "I'm sorry, kid, but... I'm out of Operation Cobra. Now it's up to you."

It all came and went like August's entire life had been an artist's master collage, of secret feelings kept from the world or even kept from himself. Until they slowed down, slowed to a stop with him lying in bed, made of wood. As though it was all he'd ever really been, as though the noise of his life had finally ceased when it was done dragging him back, step by exhausted step, to the silence of no motion.

"What this world needs is a hero. That's what a happy ending takes. Well, now it has two."

_But I failed._

Mary Margaret next. A delicate soul whose trust in people was a kind of courage. She was one of the few who weren't afraid to feel, even when it cut deep. So the curse had hit her the hardest of all, because deep down she knew something was wrong with this place, and she refused to hide from it like everyone else. She believed in true love, and in a world where it no longer existed, she held fast to innocence and ideals. She was fighting a losing battle against despondency. Henry witnessed the moment to come when it would finally break her, falling apart at his funeral, a small coffin, an image to start her down a long and dark road.

"_Clear!_"

Regina, who destroyed one thing after another trying to soothe the frustration – and when nothing worked, the pain got worse, as did the anger. She was a whirlwind long past the possibility of consolation, collected behind a proud and dignified veneer worn so convincingly, she almost believed it herself.

"_Too late. We lost him… Call it._"

There were others. Emma, who wanted to wear her heart on her sleeve, but it was broken to pieces. Graham, who he saw liberated in an embrace with Emma, the light of memory gleaming through his eyes – only to have all light crushed entirely, because he could never, ever be free. Even Mr Gold held fast to the agony of unfulfilled desires that seemed to stretch back for centuries, and yet it was easy for him to block everyone else out, because he didn't care what happened to them, he only cared about...

Dr Whale had his finger on the boy's wrist. He was announcing the time of death.

Was that all this world was, just pain and unsatisfied longing? It seemed such a horrible way to finish, but Henry's mind had never been clearer, and he saw no happy endings here.

He floated up through the ceiling, drifting far far above, leaving Storybrooke and the whole world behind, until he was somewhere else.

It was lighter, here in nowhere. The earth and everything that mattered was gone. His entire life seemed like it had been nothing more than a dream.

Little scenes from that life came and went. Regina driving him to school, at a time when he'd only felt a little distant and confused towards her. Later, on the bus with a mess of noise from the other kids, he was gazing out the window unsmiling, with the seat all to himself. Mary Margaret was taking him aside once the classroom cleared out, to tell him she was looking out for him. A book lay open on his bed, and his eyes grew wider as he turned the pages, until he sat upright with a deep breath and gazed around his room as if seeing it for the first time.

A gloom hung over it all. There had been people who really cared for him, who'd be sorry he was gone. Towards the rest he felt a desperate longing, a want for a life he could have lived, a life that might have been.

The scenes slowed down and faded out. He managed to glimpse Archie following him into the mine, and Graham sitting with him to look through Once Upon a Time, before they became too hazy to see. Henry wanted to reach out, back to Storybrooke, and somehow return to his body again. He felt terribly alone. But that world and life seemed more and more unreal, and he was drifting into who-knew-where.

Suddenly, he was seeing one last memory from afar. Henry was sitting on the castle playground, swaying his legs over the ledge. Emma was there with him, trying to cheer him up, but he wrung the walkie-talkie through his hands and stared off in consternation. He was telling her it was better she didn't believe in the curse, because that way she wouldn't get hurt.

The pain of it was unbearable. They were supposed to have each other. But the world had torn them apart, the first time at his birth, and now again at his death.

"I knew you were here to help me."

"That's right, kid, I am. And nothing, not even a curse, is gonna stop that."

_Emma!_ he screamed.

He saw a far-away look on her face, as she gazed at the sky towards him, not seeing him, not knowing he was leaving. Then she, too, was gone.

Struggling against the current that swept him through dark space, Henry knew only that he had to get back there. But the last of Storybrooke was disappearing now, with void and despair setting in its place.

Until, out of nowhere, he had a body again.

Wide-eyed, Henry surveyed himself. He was even in the same clothes he'd been wearing, right down to the scarf.

He was standing on a luminescent platform, through which he could see a sea of stars. When he looked up, stars were all he saw, and they took his breath away.

Into the distance and forever on they spanned, and the closer he looked, the deeper they went. This was the edge of infinity. It beckoned on to a greater story that could never end, for out there were too many possibilities, too many paths to travel. Beginnings and endings, they became the same thing, in a masterpiece that continued evermore in all directions. Henry was dazzled.

"Quite a sight, isn't it."

Henry turned. Not ten feet away from him, in her same ostentatious dress, stood Maleficent.

It was a surprise, but compared to the majesty of the expanse before them, it didn't have that much of an impact.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Maleficent answered, "In the in-between."

"Then... you're dead as well?"

"Yes. Your mother... Well, your mother can fight."

In spite of himself, in spite of everything, Henry smiled. "Yeah. She can."

To his amazement, Maleficent smiled too.

"So," he said, "this really isn't the end?"

"Perhaps it is. Perhaps these are just visions of our dying minds, feeding us illusions to cope with the unbearable finality of it." She sighed. "I have destroyed lives. Plenty of lives. If there's more past this point, I don't doubt I'm going on to an eternity in a thousand hells."

Henry thought about the girl crying over her mother. It was strange, he knew she'd done terrible things. But that didn't seem right to him.

"Do you know," Maleficent said, with a change of tone, "it's a very dangerous thing to kill a sorceress like me."

"Why... what do you mean?"

"I mean," she said, still staring into forever, "that upon death, a sorceress releases one last great burst of power. With it she can curse her enemies. Punish an entire land, if she's strong enough. Kill the one who took her life... if she so chooses."

As her meaning dawned on him, Henry turned to her in full. "No... no, you can't. You can't!"

On the edge of eternity, Maleficent studied her fingernails.

"Emma beat you fair and square," Henry said. "She was trying to save me. I told you didn't have fight her, and you did it anyway. You can't hurt her, it isn't right!"

"I already released the spell at the moment of death."

Henry staggered back. He opened his mouth... a small sound came out, like a sob, but he couldn't speak.

"You can relax, boy. I decided to use my power for a different purpose."

"You..." Henry blinked. "You did?"

"Yes." Maleficent turned. "Rather than kill her, I gave her a blessing. Something to strengthen that magic she wants to save you with. If she gets it to you in time, it will do more than wake you up. It will revive you from the poison."

He gaped. "You mean..."

"That you will return to life. Yes. I never could have done it while I was alive in Storybrooke, but I'm not from that world, and the same rules don't apply in death. So you can consider it a loophole that works to your favour."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "And... you're not tricking?"

Maleficent smiled. "I'm not tricking."

Henry stared at her in awe. "I don't understand," he said.

"Well," she said, "you have a good heart. So I can only imagine that whatever lies ahead of you here, it will be wonderful. If I return you to that miserable world we came from, you miss out on that. So perhaps I'm doing it out of spite."

Henry grinned. "That's not really the reason, is it."

Maleficent looked out to the stars again.

"No," she said. "It's not."

But her voice was distant, as though she wasn't quite there anymore.

Something in the beyond was calling her, and she stepped out to meet it.

Henry started towards her. "Maleficent," he said. But he faltered there.

She turned towards him one more time, and her eyes were no longer reptilian and cold. They were hazel, and afire with the blaze of stars.

Then she was a shooting star herself, vanishing into the far reaches of eternity.

Henry gazed after her. He stood poised between two worlds. One called him back. The other called him on, and on, forever.

It wasn't too late to fail, he knew. Emma still might not reach him in time.

But, Henry had never before felt so bright with hope. Good had won out. If someone as dark as Maleficent could still turn in the end, then he already knew what this endless expanse was showing him. That anything was possible.

So he would hold to faith.

Henry felt the starlight calling to him as well. Through his body it coursed, around his heart and to the tips of his fingers. It was a feeling he thought he recognised. It welcomed him, welcomed him back home.

The light was within him, the light was all around him, the light was everything. The brighter it grew, the more alluring it became. He felt something he could remember feeling, such a very long time ago it had drifted beyond recall of waking life: that all was right in the world, that everything was truly perfect.

As he went out to meet it, leaving behind all he'd brought with him, Henry felt it speak the words that every traveller hears when, like him, they cross this threshold. To them it is always a joyous song of returning, and becoming whole again. A promise, that endures beyond all the pain and suffering of any lifetime.

Perhaps, when they merge with it, what they experience is no more than one last chemical release blasted through a brain shutting down. Or perhaps it really is everything it appears to be. None who still live in this world can say for sure. But either way, to the ones who meet it there, what it shows them is entirely real. The words it speaks to them are the deepest truth.

The words are, _I love you_.

And when Henry heard them, the voice that spoke them sounded so very much like Emma.


	10. Chapter 10: An Ending

**Chapter 10: An Ending**

* * *

And then from beyond hope, from beyond saving, he breathed in.

It felt as though some great force was breathing life back into his lungs. With a gasp Henry bolted upright, like he'd broken through the surface of a dream and the momentum had driven him forward. When he dropped back onto the pillow, he saw Regina, Dr Whale and a woman he didn't know by name, but recognised as the Mother Superior of the nunnery, at the foot of the hospital bed, looking on in shock.

And Emma, Emma was there too, at his side.

He felt her hand stroking back his hair, touching his cheek as though she hardly dared believe he was really alive. She'd been crying, he saw. She had been, but she was smiling now, and the look on her face said she almost didn't think this could be real, almost, but the joy and belief there was strong enough to make her believe.

"I love you too," Henry said. He felt so incredibly light. All the dread and the terror and the hopelessness of that nightmare washed off him like it had never happened. She was here. "You saved me."

_See_, he wanted to tell her. _Happy endings are real as well._

But there was no need. She already knew.

The whole room was spellbound. "You did it," Regina breathed, and even she seemed so awestruck that she forgot, just for a moment, her hatred for Emma.

And when Emma looked back at her, there was nothing between them but sheer exultation.

Henry lay back, beaming. He felt too exhausted to move. Every muscle in his body ached from the life returned to them from beyond the brink, so far outside the point of no return. None of that mattered because, he knew, it was over. The nightmare was finished. He was alive... impossible though it should have been, he was still breathing.

When he felt he had the strength to sit up, he saw there were other nurses walking into the ward. They had a dazed look about them, like they were all digesting some thought so challenging that they weren't quite aware of where they were going. The same look, Henry realised, was also on Dr Whale's and the Mother Superior's faces.

Emma had noticed it too. "What's going on?" she asked.

It was more than amazement at seeing him alive. It was a look of dawning... of remembering.

"The curse," Henry said. "I think you broke it!"

"That was true love's kiss," said the Mother Superior.

And then, Regina seemed to come out of a spell of her own.

"No – _no_," she said.

The Mother Superior turned to her. "If I were you, Your Majesty, I'd find a place to hide."

But Regina made no move to run. Instead, she strode forward to the hospital bed.

"Henry."

Henry leaned forward. Everything she'd put him through in that dream was still fresh in his mind. He hadn't forgotten that a part of it had been real: she never had been the mother he needed her to be.

And yet, something about the way the brown of her eyes shimmered compelled him to listen. She lied so often, he'd gotten to the point of being able to tell ahead of time when the next one was coming. But whatever she was about to say now, this was no lie.

"No matter what you think," she said, "no matter what anyone tells you... I _do_ love you."

Henry stared at her.

What had Maleficent said? "She does love you. In her own way." Such a strange thing to try and understand. If she'd felt that way all along but she'd still done all those things to him, who did that make her? But it was true, he realised. She really did.

That small part of him he'd recognised before, the one he knew would always see past the damage done, reached out for her then. A feeling that longed and dared to love in return. To hold her, and call her his mother...

... but he kept his face impassive. He gave away nothing.

Regina stood, and backed up looking at him with her eyes still watery. She twirled around, pushed through the door, and she was gone.

Henry had never seen her that way before. It hurt to think, if she'd just once in his life let herself be like that, maybe he could have...

No, he told himself. He'd just gone through a whole nightmare full of regrets. It was enough.

When he looked over at Emma, he let himself not have a care in the world in his smile. He had her now. And they'd won. It was over.

* * *

Before she left, the Mother Superior thanked Emma for saving them all. "And you too, Henry," she said. "What you did took courage beyond your years."

She added that, though the curse was lifted, there was much work still to be done, and she departed with the nurses. Only Dr Whale stayed behind, but he seemed so overwhelmed with whatever memories had returned to him, he simply sat away from them, saying nothing.

After a moment of silence, Emma turned to Henry. Her face was still red from tears but she'd steadied herself, settling into the reality that her son was alive. "Here," she said, reaching for the hospital gown they'd pulled down when they tried to resuscitate him. "You must be getting cold."

As he realised she was dressing him, Henry almost laughed. "You know, I _did_ just survive a coma dream from a cursed apple. I think I'm old enough to dress myself."

But he made no move to stop her. There was something tender about it, like she wanted to make up for lost time. Her hands still trembled slightly.

"Kid," Emma said, "that's exactly why you should be relaxing right now. You just had a near-death experience." She helped his hands through the arm sockets.

"Well you had to fight a dragon," Henry said. "You sure you don't need to sit down as well?"

"I'm fine." Emma paused, midway through tucking the gown back into place. "How do you know about that?"

Henry opened his mouth to answer... and stopped. He'd put off thinking about it so far, but now the dream came back in full force. The memories on a loop, the car crash, the terror of dying and of losing her. It had all been worse than anything he'd ever known. No, more than that: it had _been_ all the worst things he'd ever known, swarming him at once. He wanted to tell her everything. Somehow he knew, even if all she could do was listen, it would be enough to release him from it.

But where could he possibly begin?

He couldn't. Not now. Not so soon.

He sighed. "Some other time," he promised.

Then, a thought occurred to him.

"You know, it's gonna be weird," he told her. "Everyone remembering, and you, well... believing."

Emma avoided his eyes at that. She looked over at Dr Whale, who was still in shock and didn't seem to even hear them.

"What's wrong?" Henry asked.

"Henry." Emma made herself turn to him. "I'm so sorry. I didn't listen. I ignored it all along, and you had to do everything on your own."

"Not really," he said. "You're the one who fixed things for everyone. And _you_ broke the curse."

She shook her head. "I came here to help you. But you had to go it alone anyway."

"You did help me," Henry said.

Emma looked like she was fighting tears again. But her voice was calm when she said, "You were really brave. I'm so proud of you." Then, not so calm, "I... I thought you might not..."

He reached over and hugged her.

"Me too," he murmured into her jacket. "I kinda let myself think for a while that I might never see you again."

Emma breathed out. She brushed a hand through his hair and swayed with him gently from side to side.

There they held each other in solitude, mother and son, safe together at last.

But she must have sensed something in his words.

"Henry," she said, "what happened to you? In that coma?"

Henry still didn't know how to answer her. But, as he remembered it, out of instinct he held tighter to her, as if being closer would ward off the wraiths of that dream.

Emma seemed to understand, and she didn't ask again.

Holding her, though, it seemed possible to think about it now. It was over, the last of the fear and despair were fading into her arms, rejuvenating him. The car crash, Emma dying, Emma leaving him alone. Regina discovering everything, and how real it had seemed that she'd won, that she would take her from him. The death march. Storybrooke's rainy streets and all the ghouls. Maleficent's memory, the murder so abhorrent, so merciless. Maleficent leading him through every twist in the nightmare, playing his mind and his every worst emotion like they were toys. Maleficent, finally turning around in the end to save him from beyond the edge.

And the in-between. How was he to make sense of that? For such a long, agonising stretch he had drifted to another world. He had actually died. He'd watched from above as the doctors and nurses failed to revive him, and known that he'd been poisoned, and that he had no chances left, this was the end. How could things ever be the same, now that he'd crossed that line, seen into the infinite?

They couldn't be, Henry realised. Even if he'd slept, unconscious, through the entire ordeal, he would have still woken to a world where the curse was lifted. Things would never be the same again. This was the start of something new, his old life had come to an ending.

A happy ending.

And suddenly, he was thinking of August, and the words on those pages that had inspired him to take a bite from the cursed apple. Suddenly everything fit into place.

Henry broke apart from her. As he looked up at his mother, he found he had an answer after all.

"I found out what a happy ending takes," he told her.

She smiled at him. She seemed to understand that too.

A happy ending takes a hero.

And there she was. For the very first time in his life, looking up at her and feeling safe, and warm, and loved... Henry knew he'd found what he was looking for, not just for Storybrooke, but for himself. He was home.


	11. Receuvium's Musings

**Receuvium's Musings**

* * *

So you stuck with me to the end, and I can't thank you enough. Truly, I don't think I could have finished this little fan-fic novella without knowing so many of you were reading it, enjoying it, and waiting for more. We writers are a precious lot, and there are few things more special than getting feedback, or even just knowing we have an audience. Thank you, thank you; it was with your help that I was able to make it through the third story I've ever finished. And now that it's over, I can read back over it and honestly say, I think I did this idea justice.

What inspired me to write about Henry's coma journey? Well my mind leapt at it when the Evil Queen told Snow White what would happen to her. "Your body will be your tomb. And you'll be trapped in there, with nothing but dreams formed of your own regrets." Heavy stuff, and thought-provoking for a psychonautical philosopher like myself. I originally intended for this story to be double-sided, the first with Snow White's nightmare, the second with Henry's. However, as I started, I realised... Snow White just doesn't interest me as a character that much. That besides, I managed to find a couple of other stories on that had already explored what happened to Snow White. Whereas no one else, to my knowledge, entertained the thought of where Henry went.

Henry, to me, is a far more intriguing character. He was difficult to write, the first challenge being that he's ten, and the second that he's a very bright and unusual ten. The angle I ended up going for was to simply tell the story with my full lexicon because, as Orson Scott-Card pointed out in the foreword to _Ender's Game_, children don't tend to think of themselves as children. Their reality seems as normal and grown-up to them as ours is to us. So I made no effort to patronise his narrative voice, and I think it paid off in weaving the complexities of a quirky, savvy, idealistic and very individual mind. A challenge, but satisfying once I got into the rhythm of it.

I have never before tried to write using characters from someone else's story. This was my first attempt at fan fiction. It was midway through writing this story that I realised, I want to be a script-writer. I think it would be really incredible to make a living out of writing for shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or Once Upon a Time. Writing has been a lifelong passion of mine but I'm only just now committing to it, and this story has been something of a warm-up for things to come.

One particular thing-to-come actually helped inspire this story. As I sat down to write Your Tomb, I immediately noticed some very interesting similarities between Henry's coma dream, and an idea I had already come up with for a novel. The novel in question, I plan to narrate into a voice recorder over an intensive 14-hour session sometime next year, with much of the time in the interim spent planning for the session in question. It will be something of an autobiographical fiction, recounting things that happened early in my own life through metaphor, as the protagonist tells his lover about a kind of living nightmare he survived as a child, and how it affected him. I won't go into any more detail than that, out of a superstition I have that giving too much away before you even start writing is a sure way to sabotage the project while it's still embryonic. But this fan fic story became something of a practice, a lead-up to that one. A safe test, of sorts, before I plunge headlong into what will be a very different, ambitious, and hopefully successful story.

Your Tomb is a dark tale. One final reason I wanted to write it was, in fact, to channel a lot of negative energy in my life. I can say that every moment of hopelessness and gloom Henry went through was something I experienced as I narrated it, and exorcised it into the creative energy of storytelling. I was self-conscious about admitting this at first. But then some of you told me that one part or another had you in tears, so I can only think that it worked. To the ones who said that – thank you so much, that meant a lot to me, and it made my day more than once.

I have gone through and made revisions to every chapter. So if you've read through it before I put up these post-story notes, and you feel like you might want to read it again sometime, there's a little bonus for you. For some of the chapters it was just to brush up a chapter here and there, but I made the biggest changes to 1, 2, 3 and 9.

In 9 especially, I downplayed the spiritual element of the threshold experience, and left it more ambiguous whether the whole thing was just visions of a dying brain (linked to Maleficent's through their dream, to answer why she was up there with him) or if it really was on the steppes of the afterlife. When I looked back over the story, that part just didn't sit right with me. Once Upon a Time hasn't concerned itself so far with any questions of an afterlife, so I felt it would be out of place to go too deep into that. That besides, I didn't want it to read like an endorsement for theological interpretations of near-death experiences. If it's an endorsement of anything now, it's probably of dimethyltrypamine.

The only other thing I wasn't sure about, in the end, was Chapter 10.

At one point, I actually planned to end the story at the end of Chapter 9: The Threshold. I felt it would give the story something of a punch, to finish on that note. After all, we've all seen the series so we know what happens next, and this entire tale has been grim from the start, so I thought an ambiguous closer could be effective. In the end, though, I decided everyone would hate me if I did that. You need a breath of air when it's over, and some closure. And in a series that's literally about happy endings, it seems like a good idea to finish with _a happy ending_!

Still, I'm not 100% convinced Chapter 10 should be there. I thought about revising Chapter 9 to give it more closure, but opted to post 10 up in the end. What do you think – good call, or bad? Let me know, if you like, I'm particularly interested in working out that kind of thing from the audience's point of view.

And of course, if you enjoyed this story, the nicest thing you could possibly do would be to tell someone about it. Recommend it to a friend, or mention it on a forum. That's just so when I get to the end of a work week thinking I don't have the energy to write, I can look at those apartment blocks of 'views-per-day' and go, you know, maybe I do after all.

What's next? I'm tossing up between writing another story about Graham, which would probably get more views than a story about Henry, who sadly isn't that popular a character. A story about someone who can't feel anything could be interesting! Alternately, I might go on to write some original short stories and enter a competition or submit them to a magazine. Haven't decided yet – but watch this space.

Finishing this story feels awesome. If you liked this one, I want to take the opportunity to point you in the direction of some others that you'll probably love: Little Boy Blue by blockmatebee is also about Henry, and it's written with a true flair of poetry; and Queen to Bishop 6 by ParadigmFilter is a Rumpelstiltskin / Belle story, but one I actually like. No, more than that, I think the author should be out there making millions of dollars with a writing style I can only dream about one day matching. There are plenty more out there; I am in fact sincerely impressed by the quality of a lot of the stories I've found on this site. It's great to see so many people are inspired. It's great to be a part of it.

And now, looking onwards to Season 2, coming up soon. Thank you again for reading my story. It means a lot, and I want to make this story just the first of many steps. I hope you got something out of it. And sooner or later, I'll be back for more.

'Til then...

Receuvium.


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